Werecats and the American Civil War

Introduction
I am J.M. Snyder, author of gay erotic/romantic fiction. I began self-publishing with iUniverse in 2002 and while I still enjoy the amount of control I retain when publishing my own books (which I do infrequently through Lulu Press), I now work with Amber Allure, Aspen Mountain, and Torquere Presses. My short fiction has appeared online at Ruthie's Club, Tit-Elation, and Amazon Shorts, as well as in anthologies released by Aspen Mountain Press, Cleis Press, and Alyson Books.

I will keep this post at the top of the page while I'm chatting here. Scroll down to read the latest entries!

Between States
Today I'd like to talk a bit about my e-book series, Between States, which is about shapeshifters. Currently there are two stories available in the series: Under a Confederate Moon and Beneath a Yankee Sky, both published by Amber Allure Press.

If the titles of the first two don't clue you in, the stories are set during the American Civil War. Caleb Chilson is a soldier in the Confederate army (for those who may not know, that means he fights for the South). Brance Brenneman is a Union soldier, fighting for the North. Once a month for a few days while the moon is full, they shift into bobcats and spend their nights hunting in the woods. By morning, they return to human form and rejoin their respective armies.

In the first book, Under a Confederate Moon, told from Caleb's point of view, the two meet in shifted form. Brance is wounded, and Caleb has never met another like himself. After assisting the older bobcat with his injury, Caleb refuses to leave him, though when morning comes, he realizes they fight on opposing sides. When he returns to his unit, Caleb is brought before his commanding officer on charges of desertion. To save himself, he blurts out the location of the Yankee camp. Fighting ensues, and Caleb must decide what matters more to him ~ the war raging between humans or the undeniable attraction he feels for a fellow shifter.

In the second book, Beneath a Yankee Sky, readers get an inside look at the elusive Brance. The son of an Amish preacher, Brance knew the simple life on a Pennsylvanian farm wasn't for him and he left home at an early age. By the time this story opens, he and Caleb have deserted the War Between the States, choosing to forge their own path together. However, trappers in the woods threaten their safety, and when the hunters see the two shift into bobcat form, Brance knows they're in trouble. A cleverly placed trap snares Caleb, and Brance must fight to protect the life ~ and the man ~ he's come to love.

Coming up
Later this fall, a third story will be released, entitled A More Perfect Union, and in early January 2009, a paperback collection of all three stories will be available, entitled Between States. Both will be published by Amber Allure Press.

Thanks for taking the time to read my posts, and thank you, Jeanne, for having me here today! I'll post two excerpts later in the day, one from each book in the Between States series, and will be giving away a copy of both e-books to one lucky winner who comments on any of my entries.

JM Snyder :: Under a Confederate Moon

Book 1 of the Between States series

Bitten as a teen, Caleb now suffers through a painful transformation from human to bobcat a few days each month. As a bobcat, he leaves behind his camp and fellow soldiers to explore the night. But a gunshot and the bright scent of fresh blood draws him to a clearing where he learns that he isn't the only one of his kind.

Wounded and hurt, Brance is a loner by nature, gruff and grumbling, who doesn't want anything to do with Caleb ... at first. The younger bobcat prevails, and starts to win Brance over, until they turn human again and find themselves on opposite sides of the American Civil War.

Publisher: Amber Quill Press (July 2007)
ISBN: 978-1-60272-075-6

Excerpt

The scent of man enveloped him. Each tree he sniffed, each branch, each bush, carried the smell of humans and their artillery. Dried blood and disease mingled with the smell, painful scents Caleb didn't like. The shirt on his back only confused his sense of smell, but once the camp was behind him, he took a moment to wiggle out of the torn material. He sniffed it, curious, then left it among the leaves as he hurried away, the growl still tickling the back of his throat. The sound warned anything away from his vicinity, and helped keep his mind off his churning stomach, or the bloodlust that filled his veins.

On four padded feet, Caleb crept through the forest as silently as a house cat stalking its prey. He hunted half-heartedly, not quite ready to sate his appetite and call it a night. At some point he scared up a large hare, coming onto it from downwind, but the creature caught his scent moments before he pounced and darted just beyond his powerful jaws to disappear into a hole too narrow and deep to dig in for long. Abandoning the prey, Caleb kept moving, always keeping the men and their smoke-filled camp at his back. He heard no more gunshots, and felt no urgency to hurry through the night.

Around him, the woods were alive in a way the human in him would never see. Small rodents raced over the forest floor, skittering through the moss and lichen, raising whiffs of fresh meat in their wake. Occasionally one would catch Caleb's attention and he'd give chase, toying with the frightened mouse until it disappeared into a crevice of tree roots too small for his paw to fit through. He caught a couple, nothing large, and let each one go after playing a bit. He wanted something larger, something worth the effort of a kill. Something ...

Off in the distance, along in the direction he was heading, he heard a gunshot. He stopped, ears trained on the sound, his whole body rigid and tense. Men, he thought, the word anathema to him in his current state. He waited for another sound, a second shot maybe, or raucous laughter in the night, but nothing seemed to follow. The tip of his tail twitched, waiting.

Then a volley of shots rang out, three, maybe four, all at once. Caleb dropped into a crouch and heard a wounded yelp cry out, a primal sound that tugged at his instinct. Another cat, he knew—a large one, by the sound of it. That damned growl of his started up again, and he sniffed the air, trying to smell powder or blood, but nothing came to him on the wind.

Could be Yanks, the still-human part of his mind whispered. Sensing an unprecedented opportunity, Caleb sat down on his haunches and licked one forepaw as he mulled over his options. Race ahead, get shot like the other cat. Or no, sneak in and sneak out, but learn enough of the enemy camp to bring back to his commanding officer in the morning. Major Pennock would want to know how he came about the information, but if they ambushed the Yanks, would it matter how he knew?

With a decisive flick of his tail, Caleb leapt away. On strong legs, with sure strides, he ran through the forest, dodging undergrowth, vaulting over fallen logs and large stones, climbing low trees to jump from their quivering branches when it suited him. The wind raced him, whipping around his ears and flaring his nostrils. His fangs were bared to the night, allowing him to catch the faintest of odors. Before long he found the scent of man again, and gun smoke, and blood.

He skidded to a halt. Like a knife, the blood pierced his mind and stirred his senses. Nosing around, he found a drop of dark lifeblood on a deadfall, still warm. His tongue licked out, and the taste of copper filled his mouth. A heavy scent like wet fur clung to the wood. Picking his way carefully over the rotten limbs, Caleb climbed the deadfall and, on the other side of the forest floor, found another bright patch of blood, a clump of fur clinging stubbornly to the edges of a paw print. Another bobcat, just as he'd thought. Wounded.

He wouldn't get far.

With his animal senses, Caleb could easily discern the cat's path through the woods -- here the grass bent in a certain direction, there a few branches were snapped as if pointing the way. Caleb padded on, cautious. Every now and then he paused to sniff around. The trail led to a thicket of tall grass, tamped down in the center. As Caleb approached, he heard a low growl issue from the grass in warning.

He sat back. Cocked his head to one side. Ventured another step and received a breathy hiss as a reward. In the darkness he could see two golden cat's eyes staring back at him. A guttural voice spoke in his mind. Another step and you die.

Under a Confederate Moon
E-Book Price: $4.00
Buy from Amber Quill • Buy from Fictionwise

JM Snyder :: Beneath a Yankee Sky

Book 2 of the Between States series

Brance Brenneman is used to harsh conditions -- the eldest son of a stern Amish preacher, Brance was bit by a werecat as a young boy, and managed to keep his secret from his family until he was old enough to leave them and their religion behind. Years later, when the nation is divided by the American Civil War, Brance finds himself enlisted in the Union army. By sheer chance, he meets Caleb Chilson, a Confederate soldier who bears his same shapeshifting burden.

Together they leave the war behind to forge a new life in the wilderness of Pennsylvania. But trappers near their camp are hunting bobcats, and they don't much care if Brance and Caleb are only in the fur part of the time. Brance finds his peaceful existence shattered, and he has to fight to defend the life -- and the bobcat, the man -- he's come to love.

Publisher: Amber Quill Press (September 2007)
ISBN: 978-1-60272-027-5

Excerpt

Caleb nodded against Brance's back and stood, then leaned down to whisper, "I still want that fuck."

"Later," Brance conceded.

Behind him Caleb stretched again. Brance risked a quick glance up and saw a glorious sight -- his lover's balls nestled in fuzzy hair, and the tip of his dick pointing down at Brance like a single sightless eye winking in temptation. If it weren't so late, and the change so imminent ... if only they had world enough and time ...

A foot nudged the small of Brance's back. "I see you looking," Caleb said again. "Two minutes, I'm telling you ..."

Sudden discomfort flickered across Caleb's face as one hand clutched his lower belly. "God," he gasped, a look of sickness on his young face. Turning on his heel, he raced for a low thicket nearby. Brance heard him retch as he disappeared into the underbrush.

It was nothing more than the moon on the rise but when Caleb cried out in pain, Brance stood and half-turned to follow his lover into the trees before a cramp in his own stomach doubled him over. Clutching his abdomen, Brance fell, breathless, to the ground. His skin began to burn, as if flames lapped his body -- pain slashed through him, radiating from his belly up through his chest, shooting down both legs, crippling his arms. In the cataclysm of change, his joints popped as his bones crunched down, reshaping themselves into a familiar feline form. Burnished hair erupted over the back of his hands, along his legs. As he writhed on the ground, his fingers fumbled to unbutton his shirt. His breath came hoarse and close, ragged to his own ears. Over the sound he heard the brook muttering to itself and, beyond that, Caleb's quiet sobs.

With nerveless fingers, Brance managed to extract himself from the shirt. His hands changed as he struggled to undress -- his nails lengthening, curving, sharpening; his fingers retreating into padded paws. The last vestiges of humanity fell away as he kicked off his underpants -- the legs that slipped from the shorts drew up to Brance's body, feet dissolving into paws, ankles straightening, knees bending back as his thighs reformed into haunches.

Around him, the night came alive with sights and smells and sounds the human he had been could not appreciate. Brance lay on his side, panting, as he allowed himself to remember the feel of this body, its weight and power, the strength now flowing through his veins. The thrashing in Caleb's thicket had stopped, as well. The stench of man filled the clearing but Brance recognized it as his own scent, mingled so heavily with his lover's that the two became one.

A sudden roar split the night. It flashed like lightning through Brance, igniting his blood. As he rolled into a sitting position, the trees nearby shook -- he watched a bobcat trot from the thicket, amber eyes trained on Brance's face. Before he could react, the cat came right for him without hesitation. Its cold nose wrinkled as it sniffed over Brance's forehead -- he closed his eyes, waiting.

Then a choppy purr filled the night air, and the bobcat butted its head against Brance's. What about now? the other cat mused. It turned, raising its short tail into the air to expose its anus. A heady scent blossomed between them, a randy, wild smell that eclipsed all others and made Brance's claws knead the soft dirt beneath him, eager. Caleb's voice spoke into Brance's feline brain. Will you fuck me now?

Beneath a Yankee Sky
E-Book Price: $4.00
Buy from Amber Quill • Buy from Fictionwise

JM Snyder :: Why Bobcats?

Why bobcats?
The most common question I get about my Between States series is, why bobcats? My tongue-in-cheek response is, why not?

The first thought that comes to mind when you say 'shapeshifter' is werewolf and, in my opinion, they're just a little overdone. I've written the obligatory werewolf story myself (it's entitled "One of Us" and appears in my short story collection, Shorts), but when I first came up with the idea for the Between States stories, I wanted something different. Something that would stand out. The first story was written with the original intention of submitting it to shifter anthology (which I decided against, in the end), and I knew every other story in the slush pile would be werewolves. I needed something all my own.

To be honest, I'm not much of a dog person and have never been "into" wolves. I have, however, always been owned by at least one cat (at the moment, two very spoiled kitties take care of me, Jelly and Jono, who have shared my life for the past twelve years). I know feline behavior intimately ~ I'm the first person called whenever a cat expert is needed among my family and friends. I know the way they act, the way they play, the way they move ... I know their purr, their meow, their walk. The flick of their tail when they're pissed, the flattening of their ears when they're mad, the head bump and rub when they're pleased.

In short, I know cats. And if I wanted my characters to feel real to the reader, in both human and shifted form, then I would need to play on my strengths and write what I know. You always hear that, "Write what you know," from writing instructors and books and magazines, and I've heard a lot of argument from people who write spec fic (fantasy, sci-fi, horror) who say they can't write what they know because magic doesn't exist, or elves aren't real, or vampires are only works of fiction. Maybe so, but there are elements you do know, which you can write about with authority, and which will make your writing stronger and your story believable. In my case, here, I wrote about cats.

I picked bobcats for several reasons. One, they're felines, of course. Two, they're very prevalent in the United States, specifically in the woods of the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, where these stories take place. They're also known as lynxes, FYI. And finally, a full-grown bobcat can be large enough to shift back into a human.

This last point was very important to me. Some authors of shapeshifting fiction don't think about the logistics of shifting. A human has a certain amount of body mass which just doesn't disappear if/when they shift into another form. Or rather, wouldn't, assuming this were something that could really happen. All the bones, the muscles, the sheer weight of a human male has to go somewhere, don't you think? To me, a bobcat solved that problem nicely, being a creature which could conceivably contain that body mass without looking grotesquely over-sized for its species.

Maybe I'm too anal in my approach, but even with spec fic, I like it to ring true.

JM Snyder :: Why the Civil War?

Why the Civil War?
The next thing people want to know is, why did I set the stories during the Civil War?

Well, this originally gets back to the anthology I planned to submit the first story to ~ it was a collection of historical shifter stories, so I needed to set these cats in a time period not my own. The Civil War was a natural choice for me, simply because I was raised in Virginia, where the history is still very much alive. We don't have history classes in middle school; we have Virginia History. Our capital city of Richmond, where I currently live, was once the seat of the Confederacy. We have statues of Civil War heroes all over town; we have museums and battlefields and earthworks, historical markers lining our roads and highways, whole sections of our cemeteries dedicated to those who died fighting the War of Northern Aggression, as some people call it around here.

I definitely consider myself a Civil War buff. Military history intrigues me, particularly that pertaining to American forces. I'm not pro-war by any means, don't get me wrong, but I am very much in awe of the courage it takes average citizens to take up arms to fight for my freedom. I know I can write the stories I write only because someone somewhere died for my right to say what I want. I am very grateful to those men and women who have given up their lives so I could live mine.

The period of the Civil War is very romantic to me. Not the war itself, because wars are brutal and bloody and destructive. But the time period of the 1860's appeals to my sense of romanticism and nostalgia. It's a simpler time, before big business came into the farmland and took over the country. A time when things like honor and love mattered above all else, or so it seems to me. Add to that a land divided in the midst of battle, fighting amongst itself, and you get a turbulent, exhilarating time to be alive. A time when the only choices available were do or die. A time much more volatile than the staid life in which I live, a time more exciting, more daring. How could you not want to capture some essence of that, to savor a life lived on the edge, when all you've known is the comfort and quiet of today's society?

Given my predilection for all things pre-1900's, I didn't have to do much research for these stories at all. I already know Civil War history better than the average person; I've probably forgotten more names and dates of battle than most school kids learn nowadays. I have a few research books to help with the words and phrasing used in everyday life during the 1800's, but that was the extent of the research I had to undertake. These stories flowed from me like a river, each word tumbling over the last in its haste to get down on paper.