Some fabulous new releases!
WOLF HUNT by Doranna Durgin (Silhouette Nocturne, Jan. 1)
A new Sentinels novel! Read the first chapter here.
A DOCTOR’S WATCH by Vickie Taylor (Silhouette Romantic Suspense, Jan. 1)
A year after the death of her husband, single mother Mia Serrat finally got herself back on track…when a mysterious accident left her fearing for her life—and her heart. Mia knew that Ty Hansen, the hotshot psychiatrist assigned to her case, was the last man she should be falling for. Yet their professional relationship quickly became personal. Very personal. Their forbidden romance screeched to a halt when Mia's son went missing and she was named as the prime suspect. Could she convince Ty of both her sanity and her innocence before it was too late?
THE SPIRIT LENS by Carol Berg (Roc, January 5)
"Superbly realized leadoff to Berg's quasi-Renaissance fantasy trilogy.... As in her widely praised Breath and Bone, Berg shapes her well-worn elements of epic fantasy into a lush, absorbing narrative. Even her minor characters, caught up in fiendish plots and deathly secrets, ring regally true, and Portier oscillates between rueful, reluctant, ethics-bending service and painful but necessary revelations while his old world collapses and a new one struggles to be born." - Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
FIRESPELL by Chloe Neill (Berkley JAM, Jan. 5)
Wonderful kick-off to the authors Dark Elite YA series. Read the first chapter here.
BLOOD CROSS by Faith Hunter (Roc, Roc, Jan. 5)
The second in the fabulous Jane Yellowrock urban fantasy series.
"In a genre flooded with strong, sexy females, Jane Yellowrock is unique. A skinwalker, a shifter who hunts rogue vampires and shares her body with a mountain lion she calls beast, her bold first-person narrative shows she's one tough cookie but with a likable vulnerability. Appealing characters, action and a touch of romance provide thrills. Hunter expands on the world she built in book one and sets her characters on a pulse-pounding, page-turning adventure." THE DEATH OF BRIDEZILLA by Laurie Brown (Little Black Dress, Jan. 21)
DARKSHIP THIEVES by Sarah A. Hoyt (Baen Books, Jan. 5)
"DARKSHIP THIEVES is an exciting and appealing space opera – so fast-paced, the reader will reach escape velocity." -- Kevin J. Anderson, bestselling author of "The Saga of Seven Suns"
Rachel Gibson meets spine-tingling suspense in this fabulous romantic thriller from debut Little Black Dress author, Laurie Brown. First in a chick-lit mystery series
Awesome authors Kim Harrison and Faith Hunter are signing tomorrow, December 5th from noon to two at the BookRack in Rock Hill, SC (near Charlotte, NC).
Rosemary Clement-Moore on Genreality about character introductions.
Marjorie M. Liu blogs about writerly routines.
N.K. Jemisin discusses the future of sf/fantasy.
Most Interesting Bookstores of the World
The World's Creepiest Places to Spend the Night
(Neither of the above are doing anything to stem my travel-mania.)
GalleyCat contributor vows to give only books for the holidays this year. Join the crusade! He offers links to best lists from Largehearted Boy.
After all the writers conference travels, my family and I (puppy and all) took a vacation in Tennessee, kayaking with the fabulous Gwen/Faith Hunter and her equally awesome husband Rod, who took Ty out on the inflatable ducky when it was clear he wasn't quite ready for his own kayak just yet. Here are some of the amazing sights of the Smoky Mountains and thereabouts. We had an incredible time with them and the folks from Rapid Expeditions, who took us over white water in our kayaks (class 1 and 2 rapids) and in a raft (for up to class 4 rapids).
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be presented with the Grandmaster Award from the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers on Saturday at Comic-Con. Go, Keith!
Faith Hunter is the featured author this month at Romance Divas. If you haven't read her work yet and want to know where to start, her latest (and first in the new Jane Yellowrock series) is SKINWALKER. I can promise, you won't be disappointed.
1-The gorgeous and talented Gena Showalter, RITA finalist for Best Paranormal
2-Me and Karen Whiddonat the Harlequin party with Gennita Low shaking her grove thing in the background
3-Becca Stumpf of Prospect Literary Agency eating a suggestively shaped potato and Gennita Low pointing it out for the camera at the St. Martin's Party
4-Kristin Nelson and Sherry Thomas, her double RITA-Award-nominee for Best First Book and Best Historical, all glammed up for the award ceremony
5-National Readers Choice Award-winner Jasmine Haynes (aka Jennifer Skully, aka JB Skully), erotica author Crystal Jordan and futuristic and fantasy writer Michele Lang
6-RITA Award winner Rosemary Clement-Moore and her fellow finalist Tina Farraro
7-Melissa Jeglinski of The Knight Agency, me and Deborah Blake (
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
deborahblakehps ), fellow Llewellyn author at the Harlequin party
Both brilliant writers can actually be sampled in the anthology, along with other fabulous authors. Just check out the line-up below!
Another year and another anthology with my name on it is hitting the bookstore shelves, this time an urban fantasy offering, STRANGE BREW.
Am I thrilled? Oh, heck, YES!
I certainly owe this rush to my amazing agent, Lucienne Diver and uber-editor Rose Hilliard at St. Martin’s. Without them, nine novellas in STRANGE BREW would never have been written.
Take a bow, ladies. You deserve it.
In my job as editor it was like getting paid to go to an amusement park and stay for as long as I liked. Each of the writers came through with some truly engaging and often hair-raising stories. I enjoyed every one of them, and please, please DON’T ask me to pick a favorite! My head might explode, and I just had the office cleaned.
If you’re a fan of Patricia Briggs—and I sure am!—you already know that she will always deliver a solid, action-packed story with people you really root for, and Seeing Eye is no exception. I’m so proud to have this one in the collection. Read it and you’ll know why!
Last Call by Jim Butcher opens with a mixing of witchcraft and a more mundane brew, when someone magically messes with wizard Harry Dreseden’s favorite beer. Harry once again fearlessly (or near as damn) sails in where other wizards fear to drink!
Death Warmed Over by Rachel Caine begins with “I hate raising the dead on a work night” thus introducing Holly Anne Caldwell, a licensed seventh-generation witch with a creepy and strangely in-demand talent. Anyone familiar with Rachel’s stories knows something extraordinary is in store.
In Vegas Odds, Karen Chance opens with the walls—literally!—coming down around the ears of Lia de Croissets. The action never lets up as Lia deals with rogue spellcasters, betrayals, and one really hot boyfriend!
Caitlin Kittredge gives us a deftly written and full of attitude story from Sunny Swann of Nocturne City, as she goes undercover to suss out a truly shocking crime in Ginger.
The wonderfully acidic vampire Dahlia is back and hell bent—while perfectly turned out—on finding and punishing the person responsible for making her a widow. Bacon, by Charlaine Harris is a must read for all fans of fang and fur!
I can’t say enough good things about Faith Hunter’s determined witch, Molly Trueblood, who must track down some extremely bad badguys in her beautifully written Signatures of the Dead
Jenna Maclaine opens Dark Sins with a spell going not quite as it should and things just keep getting better—or worse!—for fledgling witch Cin Craven! Fun and with a solid dose of the creeps and lots of action, Cin has some tough work cut out for her.
Hecate’s Golden Eye, by P.N. Elrod—hey, that’s me!—draws vampire PI Jack Fleming and his human partner Escott into a case involving a cursed gem, con artists, a mad Irishman, and lots of randomly zinging bullets. If a gem is has a death curse—shouldn’t a vampire be immune? Maybe not!
I hope you’ll enjoy these, too!
I also want to wish a happy release day to D.D. Barant for DYING BITES and Patti O'Shea for EDGE OF DAWN!
Everything Old Can Be New Again – or – Reanimating a Dead Trope.
By Faith Hunter
I’m not a necromancer, nor am I a zombie maker, nor do spend time in graveyards digging up the dead. I’m weird enough without adding any of that to my list of nightly activities! I’m a writer who wants to explore new twists on an old(ish) literary form, the urban fantasy. Most of the characters in urban fantasy are well known, some to the point of becoming tropes. In this sense, I’m using “tropes” as character types that have been so well used they are achieving their own mythos and becoming their own metaphors for an entire genre. In this case it’s vampire genre, witch genre, magic user in a modern, metropolitan genre. Urban fantasy. Natch!
The old saying that there is nothing new under the sun is true, but writers have to take the old, dead, worn out bones of existing ideas, and give them fresh skin and new forms by tossing in twists, manipulating the expected, and bending character types into the unexpected. Otherwise they won’t stand out in a genre already bloated beyond belief by the walking dead and undead tropes. Did that sound too much like varied descriptions of corpses? Hmmm. Maybe it’s just me.
To make my book SKINWALKER stand out in a crowd, I have taken the trope of the skinwalker—the non-human being who looks human, but who can change her form into any creature—and twisted it around to create a main character who has her roots in the ancient tribal myths of shape shifters, but is also innovative and singular. With these changes, Jane Yellowrock stands alone as a POV character in the genre.
Then I took the idea of vampires, gave them a unique history and their own creation myth, and viola, we have the nemeses who are both her employers and her targets. There is little that is black and white in Jane Yellowrock’s world; everything is gray and shifting and the battle of survival takes place in the midst of it all. And in SKINWALKER Jane is expected to bring down the most violent, secretive, whacked-out vamp New Orleans has ever seen.
So. How’d I do that? Make Jane stand out? Oh, it was suuuweeet!
The mythos of the skinwalker is present in almost every tribe in the world, but perhaps strongest in American Indian lore. Skinwalkers are usually dark and gory, evil creatures that kill and eat their victims. But according to the oral tradition of one Cherokee elder to whom I spoke while researching, the skinwalker was originally a good, positive, protective being who looked after the tribe, fought for it, and kept it safe. Then, something happened. The lore isn’t clear what occurred, but the skinwalker became evil, killing and eating children, young women, the beautiful. It took on a darkness that reminds me of European lore, the Grimm darkness, if you will! Then—skinwalkers disappeared.
From that history and mythos, comes Jane Yellowrock, an orphan who walked out of Appalachian Mountains, scared, scared, and with no memories at all of her past—no name, no language, no socialization skills, a feral child that, rumor says, was raised by wolves. Presumed to be about twelve years old, Jane is taken in by a children’s home where she is raised until she is eighteen, taught language, educated, and provided the skills to survive in the world. Now, ten years later, Jane hunts rogue vampires for a living, hiding her true skinwalker nature in a world where none exist, always hoping to find another being like her. But as far as she can tell, she is a singularity—one of a kind.
Learning by trial and error how to use her magic, Jane is able to keep herself alive in a dangerous world. She has discovered that if she has sufficient, viable, genetic material, she can turn into a nonhuman being. However, Jane has something inside her that isn’t mentioned in the old skinwalker lore, isn’t mentioned in any mythology in all the whole of human—and nonhuman—history. She has another soul inside with her, the soul of a Beast who is her friend, and perhaps, also her enemy. Beast has her own motives, memories, and her own agenda.
I hope you will read SKINWALKER and meet Jane Yellowrock and Beast.
Faith Hunter
www.faithhunter.net
Links to Facebook and MySpace on my website.
Bitten By Books
Event: Interview, Chat and Contest with Author Faith Hunter
"RSVP at BBB before this amazing event and get 50 entries into the contest!"
What: Informational Meeting
Host: Bitten By Books - Paranormal Fiction Review Site
Start Time: Tuesday, June 23 at 10:30am
End Time: Monday, June 29 at 11:55pm
Where: online at http://bittenbybooks.com/?p=8121
Dakota Cassidy chat Thursday, June 25th at 9 p.m. ET at The Knight Agency site
Romancing the Holidays signing - nineteen fabulous authors total
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Romancing the Holidays
Charity Book Signing
2 - 5 p.m.
Altamonte Mall
Center Court Fountain
451 E. Altamonte Drive
Altamonte Springs, FL
(407) 261-0213
The first 100 book buyers will receive a fabulous goody bag stuffed with books (many autographed), bookmarks, pens, candy and other promotional items donated by authors.
A portion of proceeds from book sales will be donated to the Adult Literacy League. www.adultliteracyleague.org
Speaking of Rachel Caine, she's guest blogging over at the Penguin site if you want to swing by and say "hello."
January
In the college town of Morganville, vampires and humans coexist in (relatively) bloodless harmony. Then comes Bishop, the master vampire who threatens to abolish all order, revive the forces of the evil dead, and let chaos rule. But Bishop isn't the only threat.
Violent black cyclone clouds hover, promising a storm of devastating proportions as student Claire Danvers and her friends prepare to defend Morganville against elements both natural and unnatural.
April
Sure, the life of a graduate student wasn't exactly glamorous, but it was Merit's. She was doing fine until a rogue vampire attacked her. But he only got a sip before he was scared away by another bloodsucker-and this one decided the best way to save her life was to make her the walking undead.
Turns out her savior was the master vampire of Cadogan House. Now she's traded sweating over her thesis for learning to fit in at a Hyde Park mansion full of vamps loyal to Ethan "Lord o' the Manor" Sullivan. Of course, as a tall, green-eyed, four-hundred- year-old vampire, he has centuries' worth of charm, but unfortunately he expects her gratitude- and servitude. But an inconvenient sunlight allergy and Ethan's attitude are the least of her concerns. Someone's still out to get her. Her initiation into Chicago's nightlife may be the first skirmish in a war-and there will be blood.
Look for the sequel FRIDAY NIGHT BITES in October!
May
From “Valley Vamp Rules for Surviving Your Senior Prom” by VAMPED heroine Gina Covello:
Rule #1: Do not get so loaded at the after prom party that you accidentally-on-purpose end up in the broom closet with the surprise hottie of the evening, say the class chess champ who’s somewhere lost his bottle-cap lenses and undergone an extreme makeover, especially if that makeover has anything to do with becoming one of the undead.
Gina Covello has a problem. Waking up a dead is just the beginning. There's very little she can't put up with for the sake of eternal youth and beauty. Blood-sucking and pointy stick phobias seem a small price to pay. But she draws the line when local vampire vixen Mellisande gets designs on her hot new boyfriend with his prophecied powers and hatches a plot to turn all of Gina’s fellow students into an undead army to be used to overthrow the vampire council.
Hey, if anyone's going to create an undead entourage, it should be Gina! Now she must unselfishly save her classmates from fashion disaster and her own fanged fate.
June
The relative peace between vampires and humans in Morganville has been shattered by the arrival of Bishop, a master vampire, who threatens to put the evil back in evil undead and celebrate in cold blood. But Bishop isn't the only threat….
Violent black clouds promise a storm of devastating proportions. As student Claire Danvers and her friends prepare to defend Morganville against the elements—both natural and unnatural—the unexpected happens: Morganville's vampires begin to vanish one by one.
Look for the 7th Morganville Vampires novel, FADE OUT, in November.
July
Introducing the bold new Bloodhound Files series—and a novel that will knock you out of this world…
Her job description is the “tracking and apprehension of mentally-fractured killers.” What this really means in FBI profiler Jace Valchek’s brave new world—one in which only one percent of the population is human—is that a woman’s work is never done. And real is getting stranger every day…
Jace has been ripped from her reality by David Cassius, the vampire head of the NSA. He knows that she’s the best there in the business, and David needs her help in solving a series of gruesome murders of vampires and werewolves. David’s world—one that also includes lycanthropes and golems—is one with little knowledge of mental illness. An insane serial killer is a threat the NSA has no experience with. But Jace does. Stranded in a reality where Bela Lugosi is a bigger box office draw than Bruce Willis and every full moon is Mardi Gras, Jace must now hunt down a fellow human before he brings the entire planet to the brink of madness. Or she may never see her own world again…
A year ago Jane nearly lost her life taking down an entire blood family of deadly rogue vampires that preyed on a helpless Appalachian town. Now, after months of recuperation, she’s back and ready to fight again. Except this time, she’s hired by those she’s trained to kill—vampires.
Jane Yellowrock is the last of her kind—a skinwalker of Cherokee descent who can turn into any creature she desires and hunts vampires for a living. She’s hired by Katherine Fontaneau, one of the oldest vampires in New Orleans and the madam of Katie’s Ladies, to hunt a powerful rogue vampire who’s killing other vamps.
Amidst a bordello full of real “ladies of the night,” and a hot Cajun biker with a panther tattoo who stirs her carnal desire, Jane must stay focused and complete her assignment.
September
The long awaited return of vampire detective Jack Fleming and his compatriot in crime-solving, Charles Escott. Romantic Times says of the series, "Vampire noir blends with hardboiled detective fiction for an effective, atmospheric supernatural mystery. Jack's voice calls to mind black-and-white movies, big band music and Al Capone-like villains. Fans of period fiction and classic detectives like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe will thoroughly enjoy this somewhat twisted tribute."
This has got to be one of my all-time favorite covers! SKINWALKER, the first in Faith Hunter's fantastic Jane Yellowrock series, will be released on July 7, 2009 and is not to be missed! If it sounds like an order, there's a good reason for that (*grin*). For instant gratification, her equally excellent Rogue Mage series (BLOODRING, SERAPHS, HOST) is already available. For a taste of the new series, here's a short story from Faith featuring her heroine, Jane Yellowrock.
Kits
By Faith Hunter
I wrapped the tools of my trade in padded cloth and secured them with Velcro. The pack of stakes, knives, and my silver traced main-gauche was small enough to fit into the saddlebags of the old Yamaha bike, and still leave room for a change of clothes and odds and ends. The Yamaha wasn’t my dream bike, but it would do for a while longer, until I earned enough to get the Harley I lusted after.
I tucked my money into the inside pocket of my jeans beside the red lipstick I favored. I French braided my hip-length hair into a careless plait and tucked it into my leather jacket where it wouldn’t be in the way or get windblown too badly. The jacket was used, purchased at a consignment store, and it still reeked of the last owner, at least to my sensitive nose. I’d tried spraying it with scent-killers, but nothing worked. If I took down the vamp I was gunning for and earned the bounty, I had promised myself a brand new leather riding jacket. That and two real vamp-killers to replace the less-than-perfectly balanced main-gauche a local silversmith had modified with silver. Last, I adjusted my gold nugget on its double chain for riding, the necklace my only jewelry.
I looked over the small efficiency apartment I rented, making sure I was leaving nothing important behind, and locked the door after me. I helmeted up, keyed on the Yamaha, and headed out of town. I had a gig hunting down a suspected young rogue vamp that was terrorizing the inhabitants outside of Day Book, North Carolina. But first, I was stopping off at a local restaurant to pick up a small tracking charm that would let me follow the whacked out vamp through rough country, and the pay the balance of the cost to the earth witch who’d made it.
( Read more... )Giveaway! Commenting on this post will get you entered to win the trade paperback edition of Faith's first fantasy, BLOODRING! (If you've already run out for a copy, I'd be glad to make a substitution.) The winner will be announced in tomorrow morning's blog by Susan Wright.
Speaking of giveaways, JB Skully is giving out free downloads this week of her erotic paranormal Dead to the Max on her blog this week, so swing on by.
EARLY YEARS
Short Story by Faith Hunter
Careful of the big, gold-toned hoops that pierced my earlobes, I strapped on my helmet and straddled the beat-up Yamaha. It wasn’t my dream bike, but it would do until I could afford the one I really wanted. I glanced back to make sure my saddlebags were latched. The teal compartments were secure, held in place with leather straps tightened by Brian, who now stood to the side, his face long and eyes downcast.
Everything was in place and ready. A thrill of excitement raced along my skin, prickling like fur. Despite the heat, I pulled on my leather riding jacket and tucked my hip-length braid inside it, out of the way. I touched the gold necklace that I still wore like a talisman, and reached for the key to start the engine.
“You don’t have to go,” Brian blurted.
( Read more... )
Faith Hunter has written an indescribably wonderful trilogy which will be coming out in mass market (already out in trade paperback) in November, December and January respectively. It's a fantastic example of urban fantasy and as a teaser for next week, she's given us a vignette of her heroine's early years.
Short Rogue Mage series blurb:
The appearance of winged seraphs heralded three plagues and a devastating war between the forces of good and evil throughout the earth. Humankind and their evolutionary progeny, the neomages, survived. When a unique battle-mage is bred and born, her gift nearly drives her insane, and into hiding. Thorn St.Croix lives disguised as a human--a fugitive, channeling her mage gifts for war into stone-magery, and the pacific tasks of jewelry making. But when the ultimate war comes to her, Thorn fights back in the Rogue Mage trilogy: BloodRing, Seraphs, and Host.
Early Years
Thorn in mineral city
Short Vignette by Faith Hunter
The blizzard had kept us locked in for two days, dark days when the sun was hidden behind black clouds and the wind howled through Upper Street like the voices of the damned. Snow piled up against the walls of the house to a height of four feet. The window glass on the ground floor and up in the loft where I slept was crusted over with blown snow, opaque and misty, further diffusing the little light that penetrated from the sun through the storm to the earth. And each time we had to leave the house to feed the mule, the icicles that depended from the eaves were longer, thicker, and more numerous.
The electricity was out. So was the phone. We were isolated from our nearest neighbors though they were only a few yards away.
( Read more... )
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