First of all, happy birthday today to Veronica Scott, fondly AKA "Calendarzilla" for this blog. What would we do without her?
Flounder helplessly, I feel sure.
Other than that...
This is release week for me!
The second book in my
Covenant of Thorns trilogy,
Rogue's Possession, came out from Carina Press yesterday. This is my first sequel - the continuing story of the adventures started in
Rogue's Pawn
- and it's been a whole new, thrilling experience to have readers
excited for the release. Already the book has been listed on October
"Must Have" lists and early ratings on Goodreads have it at a perfect
five stars.
(Of course, that's from four, die-hard fans and I don't expect it to last, but for now it's all pretty and pristine.)
For those interested, a bit of a blurb:
A
human trapped in the world of Faerie, in possession of magic I could
not control, I made a bargain for my life: to let the dangerously
sensual fae noble known as Rogue sire my firstborn. And one does not
break an oath with a fae. But no matter how greatly I desire him, I will
not succumb. Not until I know what will happen to the child.
Though
unable-or unwilling-to reveal the fate of human-fae offspring himself,
Rogue accompanies me on my quest for answers. Along the way he agrees to
teach me to harness my power, in exchange for a single kiss each day
and sleeping by my side each night. Just as I am about to yield to
temptation, I find myself in a deadly game of cat and mouse with an
insane goddess. Now my search for the truth will lead me to the darkest
of all Faerie secrets.
And, just for fun, an excerpt!
Chapter 1
In Which I Accomplish Several Impossible Things before Breakfast
Negotiation
is the science of the fae culture, providing the guiding precepts for
all actions. Virtually nothing is offered without a price attached.
Conversely, nothing can be taken from you without appropriate payment.
Pretty much.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “Rules of Bargaining”
We were late to the battle.
As
I’d been promised, the Promontory of Magic enjoyed a spectacular view,
though I wasn’t there to sightsee. The finger of rocks thrust well out
into the ocean, the water the unnatural blue of a resort hotel pool,
despite the thunderous surf and driving rain.
Below, two fleets of
sailing ships exchanged fire. They were conveniently arrayed on each
side of the promontory, flanking me as if I were a Wimbledon line judge
sitting at the net, ready to call faults and points. Except my power was
even greater.
I would decide who lived or died.
Whether I wanted to or not.
My
hair lashed against my cheeks, stinging me, and I pulled up the hood of
my cloak, grateful for its warmth. A gift from Rogue, the cloak
magically repelled water. Despite all I’d learned about controlling and
stabilizing magic, Rogue’s abilities far exceeded mine. The scent of
sandalwood teased me, bringing up warm and sensual memories of his
devastating kisses. Rogue managed to be both the bane of my life and the
addiction I couldn’t seem to shake. My life had become irretrievably
intertwined with the fae lord’s, though I hadn’t seen him in days. His
absence made my heart that much more vulnerable to the longings he
stirred in me. I tucked them away, where they wouldn’t distract me.
“Which side is ours?” I asked.
My
fae companion, Puck—a vision in celadon polka dots that clashed quite
alarmingly with his strawberry blond locks—gave me a goggle-eyed stare,
as if I’d asked which way was up, and pointed at the left side. Good
thing I’d asked—I’d thought maybe it was the other. One of the many
disadvantages of being a human in Faerie was missing out on their
hive-mind shared understanding.
“It’s a fine day for a battle!”
Puck gazed out over the ships with a gleeful expression and I tried to
fake the same enthusiasm, despite the dread in my heart.
Of
course, every day in Faerie was fine, in a purely aesthetic sense. The
sun, which shone most of the time, did so with lustrous brilliance in
depthless skies. The grass glowed an emerald green Oz would have envied.
Even the rain shimmered like effervescent and musical drops of
platinum.
Beautiful, gorgeous, yes.
Don’t wish you were here.
Seriously.
In
a place like Faerie, the pretty merely masked the reality, which could
be horrible indeed. I hadn’t liked my university job as a neuroscientist
in the physiology department back in Wyoming, but being employed as a
war sorceress sucked far more. Forget the glam sound of it—killing
people at someone else’s whim whittled away your humanity in hateful
bites. Compared to that, my old tenure committee seemed like amateurs.
“You recall your instructions?” Puck bobbed his head as he spoke, encouraging me to agree.
“Piece of cake.”
Puck
cocked his head, puzzled, and I knew my idiom hadn’t quite translated.
Usually my intended meaning got through just fine via the telepathic
network, but sometimes, particularly if I didn’t pay attention, my good
old American English slang created strange images in the fae mind.
Some gaps could never be bridged.
“Yes.
Darling will inform me of the moment and I will sink exactly half of
the enemy ships.” I sent a questioning thought to Darling, my cat
Familiar, to make sure he was still on board with the plan, especially
since he provided my only long-distance communication access. When he
felt like it. Imagine a cell phone company run by kittens.
“It shall
be a battle to go down in history! Victory shall be ours!” Puck
galloped off, leaving me alone with Darling’s grumbling narrative in my
head, which roughly translated as bored, bored, bored.
Darling had
become my Familiar largely in a quest for adventure, and being stuck
with the generals at battle HQ so he could relay information to me
annoyed him to no end. He wanted real action. Sometimes his thoughts
came across with a disconcerting manly point of view—especially since he
communicated mainly in pictures and feelings. He also suffered from
delusions of grandeur.
I had bigger problems, however. The terms
of my indentured servitude to General Falcon as pet sorceress in his war
dictated that I do as he instructed. The arcane rules of bargaining in
Faerie gave me something of an out—as long as I stuck to the letter of
our agreements, I could skate around what he really wanted.
In this case, the drowning death of half the humans in the opposing army. Or navy, I guess.
I
sure as hell couldn’t drown a bunch of innocent humans. The fae might
regard their lives as disposable, but I knew the men on those ships had
no more choice—or stake—in Falcon’s ridiculous war games than the wooden
vessels themselves. Rogue had warned me I’d face this moment if I chose
to honor my servitude instead of running off with him. Since I hadn’t
been eager to exchange my status for an even more questionable one with
Rogue, I was well and truly stuck.
Don’t think about him.
A
white slice of anger at my current predicament flared in me. Something
sharp and alien enough to take my breath away. I shuttered my mind,
thinking it came from elsewhere, but it continued its headlong race
through my heart and disappeared again, leaving me rattled. This wasn’t
the first time I’d felt it since the last battle—like the remnants of a
fever dream after you’ve awakened. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I
knew giving it attention was probably a bad idea.
Instead I concentrated on my goals for the day:
1. Do what you’re told.
2. Keep to simple agreements.
3. Stay alive.
4. Try not to kill anyone.
The four habits of highly effective sorceresses.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author with a writing career that spans decades. Her fantasy BDSM romance,
Petals and Thorns, originally published under the pen name Jennifer Paris, has won several reader awards.
Sapphire, the first book in Facets of Passion has placed first in multiple romance contests and the follow-up books,
Platinum and
Ruby,
are climbing the charts. Her most recent works include three fiction
series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns, the
contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion, and the
post-apocalyptic vampire erotica of the Blood Currency. The first book
in Covenant of Thorns,
Rogue’s Pawn, has won numerous awards and the highly anticipated sequel,
Rogue’s Possession, releases this fall. She is currently working on
Master of the Opera and
The Twelve Kingdoms, a fantasy trilogy.
Jeffe
lives in Santa Fe, with two Maine coon cats, a border collie, plentiful
free-range lizards and a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. Jeffe can be
found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com or every Sunday at the
popular Word Whores blog.
She is represented by Pam van Hylckama Vlieg of
Foreword Literary.
