Nerdgasms: A Smorgasbord of Science Fiction Delights

It couldn’t be a better time to be a sci-fi nerd. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the long-awaited seventh movie in the franchise, opens this week, Doctor Who is going strong and the annual Christmas special airs on Christmas Day, the X Files returns in January, and a third Star Trek reboot movie is in the offing. Not to mention the plethora of Marvel and DC TV shows and movies that just keep coming. (Though I’m sure some will argue that comics aren’t “true” science fiction. And those people can argue that until they’re blue in the face—like Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan or Dr. Manhattan.)

I just binge-watched Jessica Jones, which I highly recommend, and I was psyched to see that Luke Cage is getting his own Netflix show in April. And I’m pretty sure I actually yelled “OMG, WHAT IS HAPPENING ON MY TELEVISION?” when I saw the previews for Legends of Tomorrow during last week’s Flash/Arrow crossover and saw that Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams from Doctor Who) was playing Rip Hunter.

I’ve always been a science fiction fan. I grew up with Star Trek, almost literally—I’m exactly 17 days older than the original series—and was one of those kids who saw the first Star Wars movie repeatedly when it first aired in theaters. I watched every possible science fiction show and movie I could find on our little six-channel, no-cable black-and-white television, gobbled up every science fiction book in the library, and started writing science fiction stories for extra credit in sixth grade.

One might expect that lo, these many years later, I’d be busy scribbling away on my own science fiction novels. But I’ve never written one, and I have no plans to do so. For some reason, science fiction writing (outside of those short stories in sixth grade) has never come naturally to me. The stories that always find their way out of my head are fantasy, with a liberal dose of romance. I suspect that somewhere along the way, I absorbed the messages girls are bombarded with that science fiction isn’t our domain, no matter how much we love it. Little by little, though, Hollywood is beginning to realize that women love science fiction just as much as men, and stronger female characters, like Jessica Jones, are becoming more common.

Nonetheless, those stories I loved growing up made an indelible impression on me, and I couldn’t be more excited about the resurgence of some of my favorite shows and characters. To me, science fiction and fantasy are two sides of the same coin, anyway, so I don’t make a huge distinction between my love for the X Files and my fangirling over Tom Mison’s eyebrow in Sleepy Hollow. ;) As long as there’s a little romance in all of them, I’m happy.

Which sci-fi premiere are you most looking forward to? Tell me in the comments and I'll choose one commenter at random to win a copy of my latest release. While it isn’t science fiction (unless you count the science of relocating nature spirits from the old world to the new), The Lost Coast is out today.

"This gothic-inspired modern romance is built on a supernatural base that drips with intrigue, mystery and some deliciously dark humor." ★★★★ — RT Book Reviews

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On Being Shifty

I have to confess: I have shifter fatigue. Not about the concept, per se. Just that it’s been done so many times, and no matter the animal, shape-shifting creatures seem to have the same basic rules and behaviors. Sure, the wolves have their alphas and pack culture, the cats are more loners and fighters, the dragons are singular and mysterious, and the bears are a little bit dimwitted and can often be seen sucking their own paws.

Oops, that last was Chronicles of Narnia. Talking bears, not shifting ones.

Which brings me to the shifters I decided to write. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The standard shifters of paranormal romance and urban fantasy may have their canine, feline, and ursine personality quirks, but the way they shift is pretty much the same, the time-honored method since An American Werewolf in London spent a full twenty minutes on its new, cool special effects were-transformation in 1981.

And it is cool, thinking about a human having to rearrange bones and sinews and skin, and grow hair and claws, and morph into an entirely different shape, and exactly how uncomfortable that must obviously be. And then the shift back—and the problem of clothes. But whenever I considered writing a shifter, I thought about how many people had done it before me, and I just wanted to do something a little different.

Now, before I go any further, I should probably warn you that the rest of this post is a bit spoilery for my forthcoming gothic paranormal romance, The Lost Coast, since part of the suspense of the story is not knowing what the paranormal element really is until midway through. But read on, intrepid blog readers who don’t mind knowing a secret or two before they start a book.

Still with me? Okay, then. Back to the Chronicles of Narnia—the first fantasy books I read as a child, and one of the biggest influences on so much of my writing. My favorite Narnian creatures were the nymphs: the naiads and maenads, the dryads and hamadryads. In short, the nature spirits. So when I decided to write a shifter story, I thought, why does my shifter have to transform into another animal? Why not something else from nature? And how would a nature spirit shift differently?

The naiads in Narnia could assume human form when briefly out of the water, though they were tied to their watery domains. And the dryads and hamadryads could move their roots through the ground like feet shifting in sand or mud; some, if I recall correctly, able to leave their trees and assume a separate human form, while others seemed to shift into tree-like people. Though I’m probably confusing the basic rules of Narnian nature spirits with the unnatural states they were forced into by magic and the loss of magic, I always found the different ways they could shift from state to state fascinating, and I wanted to read more about them.

Hence, the idea for The Lost Coast was born. I’ll refrain from saying specifically what sort of nature spirits my characters encounter or which characters actually shift—I’d like to retain a tiny bit of mystery—but suffice to say, I had fun doing the research. I had already used a few nature spirits from Slavic mythology in my Arkhangel’sk series—the Syla and the Leshi, plus a Rusalka readers never got to meet—but I hadn’t really thought of them as shifters. For my gothic paranormal, I went with Swedish and Greek, just to mix things up. Even more fun was deciding how my unique brand of nature spirits would transform. And travel—because being connected to the thing into which you shift and yet being able to be separate from it as well can make travel difficult.

To some, I’m sure The Lost Coast won’t qualify as a shifter story at all, but like most shifter stories, it explores what it means to be human—and what it means to be something slightly other than human at the same time. The dual nature of being a shifter, in the end, is about being human. We all feel a little bit “other” and misunderstood from time to time. It’s how we embrace and celebrate the strengths of our otherness that counts.

The Lost Coast

Some histories should stay lost. Especially those written in blood.

The only things Millie Lang’s mother gave her were third-degree burns, and a name Millie refuses to use. Abandoned as an infant, Millie grew up as “the girl with the scars”, shunted from one foster family to the next.

Before she met Lukas Strand, she’d never understood what “home” meant. Then Lukas disappeared without a word. Eight years later, Millie is secure in the life she’s built as a physical therapist. Until she gets a letter from a mysterious stranger who knows her real name.

From the moment she arrives at the sprawling vineyard manor on California’s Lost Coast to work with the owner’s young son, she begins to doubt her secret benefactor’s motives. The vineyard is known as The Strand—and Lukas is her patient’s father.

As Millie delves into the tangled threads of their family histories, she realizes the fire that scarred her may not have been an accident—and Lukas’s son is in danger. Unless she survives long enough to unearth the key to some very uncomfortable truths…

Warning: Contains a vineyard owner whose family tree may not have the ideal number of branches, and a woman who is about to discover the magic hidden in her own DNA. May cause unsettling feelings of creeping anxiety and a sudden urge to make bad puns about wood.

Pre-order The Lost Coast now, available December 15:

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A Day in the Life of a Writer

Just in case you’ve ever wondered what it’s like in the glamorous world of writing, I’m here to spill my secrets.

Today I was awoken by a beeping back-up indicator on a truck outside my window, interrupting a dream in which I’d received a sudden, unexpectedly large check from my publisher (triple digits) and was having an important talk with my agent at a writing conference. Both things seemed like they were about to change my life, and then that damn truck. I’ve had prophetic dreams about rejections before, so I was hoping maybe this check thing would pan out similarly, but alas, no.

So I got up and went into my office, where I do the day job—editing for a global consulting firm. Answered emails, reviewed copy on a couple of layouts, then took a break to have coffee and a breakfast sandwich, after which I updated some project management records, finalized some copy after receiving approval for an ad from a happy client (yay!), and sent the copy for layout.

Then it was time for an hour of therapeutic yoga at my neighborhood studio to try to manage the pain from the pinched nerve I got a year and a half ago from a herniated disc in my neck from hunching over a laptop writing for 20 years. The pain sucks, but the yoga break is always nice.

Back to the “office,” where I reviewed some more layouts, worked on a PowerPoint presentation, and then a “lunch” break to watch my daily episode of X-Files—along with hundreds (dozens?) of other nerds like me going through all nine seasons leading up to the release of the new series in January.

Then more layouts and emails and edits, and finally, it’s time for me to go “home,” which means heading into my bedroom to read some Facebook posts and tweets and answer personal business email before dinner.

After that is when I start writing. I have a standing desk now so I don’t keep messing up my spine, and I keep the standing desk in my bedroom. It keeps the day job and the writing separate, and gets my butt out of the chair for a few hours. (I also have a treadmill under the standing desk, but am I using it? No. I’m standing on it.)

Normally, I write at least 1,000 words each evening, but tonight I remembered I had this blog post due; hence, my boring you with my day. When I’m finished, I have some giveaway prizes I need to box up and address to take to the post office tomorrow before the winners start to suspect that I’m a big, fat liar who just made up this giveaway. Then, hopefully, I’ll finally have time to write. Usually, writing wraps up around 1am, followed by decaf tea and a little snack (animal cookies) while I unwind with some television before bed.

Add in several breaks to feed cats (and clean up cat puke) and pet a demanding 19-year-old calico, and that’s it. That’s my life. Pretty much every day, except that on weekends, I don’t do the day job, so I have longer to write. Strangely, this usually does not amount to significantly more words.

Believe it or not, most of this—except for the neck pain, the cat puke, and the marketing—is actually how I prefer to spend my time. I like creating worlds and characters who have far more active lives than I do. Though I wouldn’t mind traveling more to some of the places I write about.

Some years I do a few conferences (many of my fellow writers are off in New York this week for the annual RWA), but I couldn’t afford any this year, which goes nicely with my social aversion and agoraphobia. Thus, here I am, sharing my oh-so-exciting day with you.

Was it everything you thought it would be?

Here Be News

New Releases

Veronica Scott released a new science fiction romance, STAR CRUISE: MAROONED. Here's the story:

Meg Antille works long hours on the charter cruise ship Far Horizon so she can send credits home to her family. Working hard to earn a promotion to a better post (and better pay), Meg has no time for romance.

Former Special Forces soldier Red Thomsill only took the berth on the Far Horizon in hopes of getting to know Meg better, but so far she’s kept him at a polite distance. A scheduled stopover on the idyllic beach of a nature preserve planet may be his last chance to impress the girl.

But when one of the passengers is attacked by a wild animal it becomes clear that conditions on the lushly forested Dantaralon aren’t as advertised – the ranger station is deserted, the defensive perimeter is down…and then the Far Horizon’s shuttle abruptly leaves without any of them.

Marooned on the dangerous outback world, romance is the least of their concerns, and yet Meg and Red cannot help being drawn to each other once they see how well they work together. But can they survive long enough to see their romance through? Or will the wild alien planet defeat them, ending their romance and their lives before anything can really begin?

Amazon     iBooks     Kobo     Barnes & Noble

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Out Tuesday: Idol of Blood, Book 2 in Jane Kindred's dark epic fantasy series, Looking Glass Gods

The price of revenge may be her sanity…and the lives of those she loves.

No longer haunted by memories of her life—and death—as the Meer of Rhyman, Ra looks forward to a quiet existence with her lover Jak in the Haethfalt highlands. Having made peace with Ahr, her consort from her former life, Ra can finally explore her new relationship, free of the ghosts of the past—until she unwittingly unearths Jak’s own.

Out of instinct, she uses her Meeric power to heal the pain of Jak’s childhood trauma. But all magic has a price, and Ra’s bill has come due.

Succumbing to the affliction inherent in her race, Ra flees to the mountain ruins where her mother’s temple once stood. As the madness takes hold, she resurrects the ancient city of AhlZel in a tremendous act of magic that seals her fate—and threatens to destroy those who would give up everything to save her from herself.

Product Warnings: Contains dark themes, violence, gender-bending sex, and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse.

Idol of Blood is available in ebook and paperback from the following retailers:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book-A-Million | iBooks | Kobo | Samhain Publishing

Follow Jane's blog tour and giveaway June 23-30 for a chance to win signed paperback copies of Books 1 and 2 in the Looking Glass Gods and a Cult of Isis necklace.

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Now Available for Pre-Order!

The planet had secrets it never revealed, until it was too late. 

Centuries ago, mankind's only hope for survival were the seven vessels specially fitted to send the last survivors of Earth to a planet named New Earth. Seven space ships that became floating cities once they landed on the water-only world teeming with edible seafood, as well as dangerous creatures. 

Lt. Jace Novick, of the ship UnderPlatinum, is sent to sister ship UnderSilver to see if he can help find a possible solution to their growing problem. Food is beginning to run low, catches are growing scarcer, and the tension between ships is increasing as starvation becomes imminent. 

Lt. Commander Rhone Derth has created a security device called wrap shields to protect Silver from repeated attacks by the planet's hostile monsters. But it seems the shields are also keeping the fish away as well. Jace believes he has an answer, but it means he and Rhone must work together despite Rhone's antagonism toward him, and the short time he's been allotted before he must return to his own ship. 

Together, they try to discover a way to survive as the other vessels turn on each other in a desperate battle for the last of the dwindling food supply, not knowing that another, more malevolent being is watching them from the depths.

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The Making of Michael Bishop is now free on all platforms

Keep your distance. Don’t look him in the eye. Feed him and leave.

 Michael D’Augustino is a priest in the time of the Inquisition. Marked as weak for his refusal to torture those charged with sorcery, heresy, devil worship or worse, he’s given another task. Feed the prisoner in the cell in the darkest corner of the dungeon. With the edict comes a set of instructions.

Ever obedient, Michael does exactly as he is told. Until the night his charge doesn’t eat and Michael has to enter the cell to find out why. Instead of the beast he believes to be imprisoned there, he finds a man. A broken, tormented man who asks for help.

But all is not as it seems and, before the night is through, Michael will be changed forever.

Nook  Kindle 

Can We Talk?

(And yes, I am channeling the late, great Joan Rivers.)

I have to tell you right now that I’m not feeling the blogging thing lately. It’s always been a struggle for me to come up with something to say that doesn’t seem overly promotional, or know-it-all-writery (I don’t know it all, and I don’t think I have any business giving writing advice), or fakely personal in order to “build my brand” as this fascinating, witty person whose books you’ll all want to read.

I’ve written four blog posts so far tonight and this one is the closest to being even remotely fit for public consumption. So I’m just going to throw in the towel and turn the tables on you (and mix up a bunch of metaphors into an awkward stew), and ask you what you want me to talk about.

What are you looking for when you come to a book blog or a writer’s blog? What do you like to read about? Are you tired of hearing about an author’s latest release or her writing process, or is that what you really want to know?

Since it’s a Saturday, I have the rare luxury of being able to check back frequently and make this a little conversation throughout the day, if anyone’s so inclined (after a reasonable wake-up time on the US West Coast—reasonable to me being noonish). So this one’s on you, Obsessive Reader. Ask me anything. ;)

Here Be News

New Releases

A Monster Haven Story, book six

When Zoey Donovan found out monsters are real, her life changed—mostly for the better. Since then, she’s fought bad guys, saved the world a time or two and earned the love of a growing family of humans and Hidden creatures alike. But the danger that’s chased her from the beginning is finally here.

Shadow Man, aka The Last Hidden, has stepped out of the story humans wrote for him and into the real world, hell-bent on stealing children. Fiction has become reality and Shadow Man intends to break the Covenant, reclaim the Hidden, and kill all Aegises along the way…triple bad news for Zoey and her mother, the only two Aegises still alive.

Zoey will have to rescue the stolen kids and hunt down the most terrifying villain humanity has ever imagined. But how can she fight a creature only invented a few years ago? If Shadow Man triumphs, the world as she knows it will end. If Zoey succeeds in driving him out, the people she loves the most may be lost to her forever.

Get it today!

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Book one of Chaos Station

"You're not real. Felix Ingesson is dead."

The war with the alien stin is over, but Felix Ingesson has given up on seeing his lover, Zander Anatolius, ever again. Zander's military file is sealed tighter than an airlock. A former prisoner of war, Felix is attempting a much quieter life keeping his ship, the Chaos, aloft. He almost succeeds, until Zander walks on board and insists that Felix isn't real.

A retired, broken super soldier, Zander is reeling from the aftereffects of his experimental training and wants nothing more than to disappear and wait for insanity to claim him. Then he sees footage of a friend and ally—a super soldier like him—murdering an entire security squad with her bare hands and a cold, dead look in her eyes. He never expected to find Felix, the man he'd thought dead for years, on the ship he hired to track her down.

Working with Felix to rescue his teammate is a dream come true…and a nightmare. Zander has no exit strategy that will leave Felix unscathed or his own heart unbroken.

Get it today!

***

Looking Glass Gods, Book 1

One stranger seeks to claim her heart…another is destined to destroy her.

Ra. Just two letters. Barely a breath. When she stumbles into the frozen Haethfalt highlands, her name is all she has—the last remnant of a past she’s managed to keep hidden, even from herself. Her magic, however, isn’t so easy to conceal—magic that’s the province of the Meer, an illicit race to which she can’t possibly belong.

The eccentric carpenter who takes her in provides a welcome distraction from the puzzle of herself. Though Jak refuses to identify as either male or female, the unmistakable spark of desire between them leaves Ra determined to find out what lies beneath the enigmatic exterior.

But more dangerous secrets are brewing underneath the wintry moors. Jak’s closest friend, Ahr, is haunted by his own unspeakable past. Bounty hunters seeking fugitive Meer refuse to leave him in peace.

Harboring feelings for both Ra and Ahr, Jak nonetheless struggles to keep them apart. Because like the sun and the moon coming together, their inevitable reunion has the potential to destroy Jak’s whole world.

Available now from Samhain Publishing and the following retailers:
Amazon | All Romance eBooks | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo

A Study in Pigheadedness...er, Perseverance

Seventeen years ago, I wrote a doorstop of a fantasy novel, titled Anamnesis. After several rounds of edits and a few beta reads, I thought it was ready to be published.

Back in the Dark Ages, there was no QueryTracker, so I bought a copy of Writer's Market and did my research the hard way. There wasn't a lot of information there besides addresses (often without the agents' names), and if you were lucky, maybe something about the genres they represented. The other way to find an agent was to look in the fronts of books you loved, and books that were like yours, and see if the authors credited their agents. I compiled my tiny list, and though almost no agents accepted queries by email at the time, I found a few who did, and started with those, moving on to the snail-mail queries after that first handful of rejections. (My query, by the way, was atrocious. There was also no Twitter full of helpful writers to turn to for a quick query critique. And none of the few writers I knew had any knowledge of querying.)

I sent those early queries out one at a time because their listings in Writer's Market insisted "no simultaneous submissions." It took a few years to exhaust my small supply of agents, because after sending off a snail query, you had to wait several months for rejection.

After five years of slow rejections, I started attending novel writing workshops and trying to form critique groups with the writers there. (Those always lasted about one novel—usually theirs. Either they didn't care for my critique or they just didn't feel like reciprocating. But I did manage to find a few good ones.) Around that time, Writer's Digest had also begun offering online courses. For the first time, I had someone to tell me my query was crap, and just why it was crap.

Six years in, I managed to get two requests for partials out of my growing list of agents. (There were now online newsletters and websites that compiled lists of agents, including Writer's Digest and Publisher's Weekly—though you had to pay to get them—so my rejections came faster and many allowed simultaneous submissions. But still almost no email queries.)

When I'd exhausted that list, I decided to write a novella based in the same world, thinking it might get published in a speculative fiction magazine and earn me some publishing chops to put in my next round of queries. What resulted was The Devil's Garden. What I found out next was that there were almost no SFF magazines left in print, and those few that remained had great disdain for any romantic elements.

At last, I gave up on Anamnesis, and in 2006 I began research for a new book, which would become The House of Arkhangel'sk trilogy. By the time I stopped procrastinating with research and wrote the trilogy in 2009, I looked up and found there was a whole new world of publishing. There were these things called "ebooks," and this place called "Twitter," which was overflowing with writers and agents and publishers, and people wanted to help each other in this process. It was mind-blowing. And through Twitter, I discovered that ebook publishers were actually acquiring novellas.

In 2010, I sold my first work of fiction longer than a short story, and The Devil's Garden was published by Carina in 2011.

When edits were finished on Garden, I did a major overhaul of Anamnesis, breaking it into a trilogy and adding additional material. Ultimately, Carina passed on the novel, but a mere 17 years after this adventure began, I'm thrilled to announce that the first installment of what began as Anamnesis has finally been released into the wild: Idol of Bone, Book 1 in the Looking Glass Gods series, was released in ebook and trade paperback on Tuesday.

The moral of this story? Don't give up on your baby if you believe in it—even if it takes 17 years for that baby to grow up.

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One stranger seeks to claim her heart…another is destined to destroy her.

Ra. Just two letters. Barely a breath. When she stumbles into the frozen Haethfalt highlands, her name is all she has—the last remnant of a past she’s managed to keep hidden, even from herself. Her magic, however, isn’t so easy to conceal—magic that’s the province of the Meer, an illicit race to which she can’t possibly belong.

The eccentric carpenter who takes her in provides a welcome distraction from the puzzle of herself. Though Jak refuses to identify as either male or female, the unmistakable spark of desire between them leaves Ra determined to find out what lies beneath the enigmatic exterior.

But more dangerous secrets are brewing underneath the wintry moors. Jak’s closest friend, Ahr, is haunted by his own unspeakable past. Bounty hunters seeking fugitive Meer refuse to leave him in peace.

Harboring feelings for both Ra and Ahr, Jak nonetheless struggles to keep them apart. Because like the sun and the moon coming together, their inevitable reunion has the potential to destroy Jak’s whole world.

Available now from Samhain Publishing and the following retailers:

Amazon | All Romance eBooks | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo

Decking the Halls

As anyone knows who’s followed my December blog posts in past years, I am an unabashed fan of all things Christmas. I celebrate it as an atheist with pagan leanings, and I don’t see any contradiction in that at all.

My favorite thing about Christmas is the tree covered in sparkly lights in the middle of my living room. (And really, how much more pagan could you get?) Last year I bought my first artificial tree, with much reluctance. I love real trees, and fake ones always look, well, fake, but it was getting to be too much to drag home the tree and set it up, especially after my neck pain began last autumn. So I sucked it up and bought a tree that I could have on hand and put up year after year. The upside of this, besides not having to trudge out in the rain to pick out a tree and come back covered in pinesap (and dealing with slugs—slugs!—that were living in my tree well the last time I bought one), is that I can put up my tree whenever I want. And so I did. Last Saturday. All I have to say about that is that people are lucky I don’t put it up the day after Halloween. ;)

I used to make decorating the tree an all night affair as soon as I put it up, but this year I’m just doing a little each day, watching it transform from bare, to covered in lights (10 strings of them) to minimalist decorating with two sets of colored balls and some beaded garlands…to the eventual placement of over 200 ornaments, because, yeah, I’m that lady. (I also have cats. Just to help you paint the picture.)

To me, Christmas is the perfect accompaniment to writing fantasy, because it’s ultimately a lovely fantasy about overcoming all our baser instincts and promoting peace on Earth and goodwill toward those we’re sharing the world with. And we could really use some goodwill right about now. I wish that much could be more than a fantasy, but I don’t mind believing in magic for just a little while. There’s been so much darkness in the world this year, I feel the need to cling to the fantasy even more, so I’m hunkering down in my house and watching every Christmas movie ever made (even the really bad ones), baking cookies, and basking in the glow of the tree while we experience the miracle of an entire week of rain here in Northern California in the midst of one of the most severe droughts on record.

I’m also going to take some much needed time off to finish Idol of Glass, the book I didn’t quite manage to make any headway with during NaNoWriMo. And then I’m going to go see the local theatre company’s production of A Christmas Carol, as well as The Nutcracker—the first time for my adult son. He and I also have plans to see It’s A Wonderful Life on the big screen. And then, of course, there’s the Doctor Who Christmas special on Christmas Day.

Say, is that a TARDIS on that tree or is just happy to see me? ;)

How to be Master of the Game

In honor of Release Day for Master of the Game, I thought I'd share a little about the game in the title.

The first words I wrote when I began my series of books about demons and angels—The House of Arkhangel'sk, and its m/m erotic romance prequel, Demons of Elysium—was my demon Belphagor beating the metaphorical pants off a little pampered angelic grand duchess at the demon game of wingcasting. This is the game (or one of them) at which Belphagor is the master.

What is wingcasting? I thought it might be easier if Belphagor told you. What follows is an excerpt from Book 1 of The House of Arkhangel'sk, The Fallen Queen, which began the journey that ends today with the release of Book 3 in the Demons of Elysium series, Master of the Game. Belphagor has been tasked with entertaining the mad cousin of the grand duchess, and he decides to teach the angel what he knows:

§

When the Ophanim admitted him, the principality stared at him with naked hostility.

Belphagor held up the cards. “I thought I’d teach you one of my vices.”

“Really.” Kae dropped his book onto his tea table. “I had no idea vices could be learned.”

“Indeed they can, my lord.” Belphagor pulled up a chair beside the table and shuffled the deck.

“And if I ordered you to leave?”

“I imagine she’d punish us both. I have no idea how she punishes you, but I don’t care for the way she punishes me. I’d prefer to avoid it.”

“She punishes me by sending you to my suite,” snapped Kae.

Belphagor began to deal the cards. “There are four suits and four choirs. I’m sure you’re familiar with the choirs.”

“The natural order to which I belong and you do not? I think I’m acquainted.”

“The four suits are based on symbols from the world of Man. Spindles, knives, tricks, and facets. Thus, forty-eight natural cards: three orders of angels in each choir, and four choirs in each suit. There are also two wild cards—the succubus and the incubus.”

“Delightful.”

Belphagor placed the die before him and set the rest of the cards on the table. “Technically, there should be rims to throw against, but if you cast the die without much force, I’m sure we can make this table work.” He picked up his hand and surveyed it, moving orders and suits together. “You need a matching set of orders or choirs, or a consecutive sequence of either for a winning hand. A ‘full choir’ is all the orders of a particular choir in the same suit: Dominion, Virtue, and Power of spindles, for example. A ‘full sphere’ is a single order in each of the four suits, such as the Principality of spindles, knives, tricks, and facets. Full choir beats a full sphere. ‘Fourchoir’—that’s the first order of each choir in the same suit; can’t be second or third orders—beats a full choir. That should be enough to start you off.”

Kae stared at him. “Nobody would make a game like that. It’s nonsense.”

“It’s your throw.” Rain battered the western windows of the suite. The pebbling sound on the glass behind Belphagor grew loud in the silence while the principality continued to stare. At last, Kae sighed and tossed the die across the table.

“Salamander,” said Belphagor.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I called Salamander. It landed on Phoenix, so you’re clear. If it had been Salamander, you’d have to surrender a card.” Belphagor shifted a few of his with apparent purpose. “This is where I’d have to increase my bet if we were playing for facets, but since I haven’t any and you don’t know wingcasting, we’re just playing for fun.” He nodded at Kae’s cards, still facedown on the table. “You’ll want to know what you’re holding.”

The principality unfolded his arms and snatched the cards from the table, clearly baffled by the rules Belphagor had rattled off. “Now what?”

“I throw.” Belphagor cupped the die and blew on it. “Call.” He cast with practiced ease.

“Call what?”

The die landed, showing the Serpent.

“Well, if you’d called Serpent, you’d have won that round, and I’d be surrendering a card right now. There’s a different elemental creature on each face. Take a look. I can write them down for you to refer to until you’ve committed them to memory.” Belphagor set his hand facedown on the table and stood. “Do you have pen and ink?”

Kae turned the dodecahedron die in his hand, then slammed it back onto the table. “I don’t need it written down. Just roll.”

“It’s called throwing.” Belphagor took his seat. “Or casting. Hence ‘wingcasting.’”

“Throw! Cast! I don’t care what you call it, just do it!”

Belphagor cast again, and the principality called out, “Bear!” The die landed on Dragon.

“There’s no bear,” said Belphagor. “There’s not even anything remotely resembling a bear on that die. Bat, Rook, Damselfly; Dragon, Phoenix, Salamander; Serpent, Ptarmigan, Toad; Swan, Crab, Eel. Three creatures of each element.”

The principality clutched his cards, barely controlled rage in his grey gaze.

Belphagor shrugged. “I suppose a dragon’s a little like a bear.” He lifted a card from his hand and put it face-up on the table. “There, now. You can take that if you wish. If it suits your current hand. Or you can throw again.”

§

Love is the ultimate game changer…and this time it’s winner take all.

Now that his lover is back in his arms, Belphagor is taking his own sweet time to say the words Vasily longs to hear: “You’re my boy.” And savoring the sweet torture
of driving the firespirit into a frenzy of unfulfilled need.

As the undisputed master of Heaven’s gaming tables, Belphagor never plays unless he’s certain of winning. But this time, political machinations send the game—and Vasily—tumbling to the brink of even his formidable control.

Vasily can’t deny enjoying their delightfully edgy play—until the airspirit auctions him off for a night to the one demon with a gift for taking things too far. Seductive Silk, tight-lipped about the end of his relationship with the sweet submissive Phaleg, may also be involved with a new faction threatening the pregnant queen of Heaven.

Belphagor couldn’t be less interested in the games angels play, but when angelic and demonic intrigues overlap, he’s drawn in against his will. And forced to break his one inviolable rule: Never gamble what you can’t afford to lose.

Warning: Contains more than a mouthful of m/m ménage, with intense D/s situations featuring intricate rope work, balaklavas, and a flurry of snow.

Available now from Samhain Publishing and the following retailers:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo

Follow the Master of the Game tour this week for a chance to win a $25 Amazon/B&N gift card or a Diamond Accent Winged Demon Heart Pendant!

Win-A-Book Wednesday with...Jane Kindred!

Jane Kindred

Jane Kindred is the author of The House of Arkhangel’sk trilogy, the Demons of Elysium series, and The Devil’s Garden. Born in Billings, Montana, she spent her formative years ruining her eyes reading romance novels in the Tucson sun and watching Star Trek marathons in the dark. She now writes to the sound of San Francisco foghorns while two cats slowly but surely edge her off the side of the bed.

You can find Jane on her Twitter account and Facebook page—both of which are aptly named “janekindred"—and on her website, www.janekindred.com.

Master of the Game*

Master of the Game, available August 5 from Samhain Publishing, is the third and final book in the Demons of Elysium series: a blend of m/m BDSM erotic romance and epic fantasy with a paranormal contemporary twist. This is your chance to win an Advance Copy!

Here's what people are saying about Demons:

“A spicy erotic fantasy that submerges the reader into a tempestuous relationship that speaks of dark desires and wicked delights. Kindred tucks her burgeoning romance inside an intriguing story filled with deception and betrayal as luscious angels and demons all vie for the ultimate prize. Drenched in a decadent haze of pleasure, pain, discipline and punishment, Kindred’s voice captures readers, leaving them panting for more.” ★★★★  — RT Book Reviews

“This world is freaking awesome. ... Once I thought I had a hold on where Kindred was going with this story it would take another turn. I was glued to the pages of this book till the very end.” 4.25 stars — Crissy, Joyfully Jay

“What a seductive, devilishly delicious tale... Steamy, solid entertainment!” ★★★★★ — Rainbow Book Reviews

“The second installment in Kindred's wickedly erotic, BDSM-based Demons of Elysium series immerses the reader in the dark and tempestuous relationship of Belphagor and his fire demon lover. Pain and pleasure vie for dominance as Kindred takes their relationship to a new level—a level that will make or break the fragile love that exists between them. Kindred does a splendid job of balancing the decadent romance with an engaging conflict filled with lust, lies and revelations.” ★★★★ — RT Book Reviews

*Note: If new to the series, winner of the giveaway has the option to receive Book 1 (Prince of Tricks) instead.

Love is the ultimate game changer…and this time it’s winner take all.

 

Now that his lover is back in his arms, Belphagor is taking his own sweet time to say the words Vasily longs to hear: “You’re my boy.” And savoring the sweet torture of driving the firespirit into a frenzy of unfulfilled need.

As the undisputed master of Heaven’s gaming tables, Belphagor never plays unless he’s certain of winning. But this time, political machinations send the game—and Vasily—tumbling to the brink of even his formidable control.

Vasily can’t deny enjoying their delightfully edgy play—until the airspirit auctions him off for a night to the one demon with a gift for taking things too far. Seductive Silk, tight-lipped about the end of his relationship with the sweet submissive Phaleg, may also be involved with a new faction threatening the pregnant queen of Heaven.

Belphagor couldn’t be less interested in the games angels play, but when angelic and demonic intrigues overlap, he’s drawn in against his will. And forced to break his one inviolable rule: Never gamble what you can’t afford to lose.

Warning: Contains more than a mouthful of m/m ménage, with intense D/s situations featuring intricate rope work, balaklavas, and a flurry of snow.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Shape of His Heart by Jane Kindred

The Shape of His Heart

by Jane Kindred

Free image from http://www.sxc.hu/ used according to the Image License Agreement.

It was an extravagance. She insisted she didn’t need a gift. It was the same every year, and every year, he ignored her, presenting her with trinkets, dainties, and posies, which she accepted with grace, chastising him gently. And every year, his gifts were piled with the others from her many admirers and instantly forgotten. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the gesture; she did say repeatedly, after all, that she didn’t need the gifts he insisted on giving. But the queen had many admirers, all of whom ignored her wishes on the matter.

One could hardly blame them. Male or female, human or hiddenfolk, one look upon her countenance and they were consumed by an inescapable obsession. He’d fallen for her himself so long ago he no longer remembered the life he’d once had in the world above. All that mattered was the queen. And all that mattered to the queen was conquest.

He had brought her the spoils of war—foreign princes from exotic lands in the upper realm, incomparable beauties of every hue and height who knelt before her, defeated, for her amusement. He supposed he might once have been one of them. The thought only bothered him a little. Those who resisted her pull amused her most, as they would be the ones who simpered and fawned over her to the point of obsequiousness after their ultimate surrender.

He had given her the daughters of princes, as well. Teary-eyed little things who missed their mothers, and who were easily enchanted by the maternal kindness she showed when she chose to. But she had so many of these tender morsels she couldn’t remember their names.

He’d gifted her with rare blooms from the most distant mountaintops and valleys, stunning and exceptional, for her ladies-in-waiting. She wore down their pride with her own grace and elegance until they went mute, with eyes downcast, grateful for the chance at servitude. She decorated herself with them, arranging them about her throne in fantastic flowing gowns of every color to kneel at her feet and lay their heads against her thighs and drape her arms to offset her own matchless beauty. They changed with her mood, and she had many moods.

But this gift…this one, he was certain would surpass all others. It was a gift no one had given her before. He wrapped it carefully in leaves of gold, tied with glistening gossamer. He allowed the others to go first, patiently biding his time from the back of the hall, where he leaned casually against a crystal pillar watching the queen accept her gifts with the usual graceful boredom. This gift would not bore her. It was a gift she would never expect.

Her tresses of midnight blue trailed down over her ladies-in-waiting, stunning in gowns of scarlet against her own golden sheath, the train of which pooled around them like molten metal. She’d gone with lighter gold for her skin, offsetting it nicely. And her eyes this evening were the color of amber; he could see them from here, glowing like a cat’s. The queen nodded and thanked her admirers with the presentation of each gift, tolerating the emotional ones who wept and kissed her feet, overcome.

The gifts piled up.

At last, the room had emptied. Sycophants and servants glared at him on their way out, knowing he was a favorite, or at least that he thought himself so. She beckoned to him with jewel-bangled hand.

He pushed himself away from the post and came forward, bowing low—but not too low—when he reached the dais. She liked that he had a bit of spirit. He supposed he must not have struggled much against his enslavement, for he wasn’t in the least obsequious.

He straightened and held out the gift.

“Darling, you shouldn’t have,” she said, as always, as she accepted it. “You know I want for nothing.”

“But you do not have one of these.”

She raised a poppy-colored eyebrow. “Have you brought me a pixie? I can’t imagine what other living thing could fit in such a package.” Her graceful hands pulled away the gossamer and layers of gold, revealing the claret-colored box. The thick, leathery fabric of the box was stitched together with sinewy cord in the shape of a heart. He’d made it all himself by hand—the hinge, the clasp, the intricate designs he’d carved into it.

The queen raised her eyes and smiled encouragingly, inquisitive. He’d captured her interest. She ran her fingers over the surface, admiring it, rubbing her thumb along the seams. He held his breath. She opened it.

Nestled inside, the bloody muscle beat steadily.

The queen frowned, lifting it out. “You think I don’t have one of these?”

“My queen, that is not the gift. I merely thought you would appreciate the symbolism of what could the gift could be used to hold. The gift is the box itself.”

She set the heart back in its nest and closed the box once more, examining it. “It is lovely.” She seemed puzzled.

“I made it for you myself, my queen.”

“Made it? Out of what?”

He unbuttoned his coat and unlaced his shirt, holding it open to let her see the jagged pink line of puckered scar tissue.

Her eyes went wide, the amber sparkling like fire. “It’s your heart in the box?”

“No, my queen. My heart is the box. I tenderized it and hollowed it out, and sewed it together with cord made from my veins. The hinge and clasp are the arteries.” He smiled at her incredulous gasp and took her hand from the box to bring her fingers to his mouth. He kissed them reverently. “Your heart will be safe inside it.”

---February 2014

Find out more about Jane Kindred!

Five things to love about TV’s new love affair with fantasy

Tim Mison as Sleepy Hollow's Ichabod Crane

Stephen Amell as Arrow's Oliver Queen

Colin O'Donoghue as Once Upon a Time's Hook

Jay Ryan as Beauty and the Beast's Vincent Keller

David Giuntoli as Grimm's Nick Burkhardt

Oh, and yeah...them. ;)

Yeah, I’m in that kind of a mood. I’m seriously digging the multitude of SFF offerings on TV this season, and the above isn’t the only reason, but it sure doesn’t hurt. And of the five six, Sleepy Hollow, Once Upon a Time, and Beauty and the Beast at least have strong women playing equally important roles. My favorite for that so far is Sleepy Hollow—and also for its diverse casting. Grimm and Arrow get props for trying, but Supernatural? Heading into season nine and they've really never gotten it right. Oh, well. I hear there's a spin-off in the works. Can't wait to see what that will bring!

And there's more to love among the plethora of fantasy shows: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Doctor Who, Lost Girl, Continuum, Warehouse 13, Alphas, Being Human, and last year's favorite of mine that I can't wait to see more of: Orphan Black. (Just to name a few.) But I have to confess to really enjoying the eye candy in the list above. I also have to confess to so far not being that impressed with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Except for Ming-Na Wen and Clark Gregg, I'm not really loving the cast. But maybe they'll grow on me. I'm definitely going to keep watching, I just haven't been wowed yet by this latest Whedon project.

Do you have a favorite so far?

Another Rant About Kickass Heroines

In keeping with the post Evey Brett wrote on Sunday, I’m still on my own kick about the problem with kickass heroines. This is something I’ve been grousing about since before my House of Arkhangel'sk trilogy came out. My Anazakia is not what I’d call a kickass heroine. She’s just a girl. She’s not a victim or a damsel in distress, and she’s not a badass who knows martial arts, who can wield a mean sword or a Browning, or whose ability to conjure up powerful magic through sexual ritual blows more than minds. Ahem. Like I said, she’s just a girl—one whom I tossed into a really shitty situation and made her find her way.

On my regular post on the Paranormal Romantics blog a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the Buffy marathon I’ve been having this month, and how it’s made me think about the kickass heroine problem all over again. I used to think it was Buffy’s “fault,” that everyone was emulating this successful formula in urban fantasy, but as I’ve been watching it through from the beginning, I realized that she’s just a girl. Yes, she has special enhanced strength as the Chosen One and trains hard to be a fighting machine, but she’s a well-rounded female character with wonderful flaws, who gets beaten down again and again, but gets back up because she has to. She makes dumb decisions in relationships with guys. She makes the hard decisions, too. She tries to make it through college while raising her kid sister and fighting demons, and has to deal with crushing debt from medical bills after her mother’s death. She has a bratty sister and she’s mean to her as often as not, like sisters are.

My favorite Buffy character, though, is Anya. A former vengeance demon demoted to being human, she has to make her way through the confusing world she’s found herself in after a millennium of having unlimited power. What I love most about her is her blunt speech, which rather than being rude and abrasive, is actually painfully real and honest in a way that exposes her heart.

Watching the episode “The Body”—one of the most brilliant hours of television-making ever, which should have won every award there is, but was never nominated, because, y’know, it’s just spec-fic, and “girl” spec-fic at that (grrr, argh)—in which Buffy’s mother is found dead of an aneurism, it’s Anya who reduces me to desperate, wracking sobs every single time I see it. There are “feels” all the way through the episode, but Anya’s blunt statements about not understanding what’s expected of her in the face of her friend’s mother’s death are utterly heartbreaking. At first, everyone is appalled at her, wishing she’d shut up and do the polite thing, because they don’t know what’s expected either. But she responds with the most heart-wrenchingly honest speech I’ve ever seen about death and loss on television.

Anya isn’t kickass either, even though she’s been a vengeance demon for a thousand years. She’s just a girl (or woman, as the show goes on, lest anyone think I’m infantilizing adult women with the “girl” term). She isn’t overly sexualized, or hyper-masculinized, or imbued with impossible strength or improbable weakness. She isn’t ridiculously smart, or annoyingly stupid. She’s human. That was the true brilliance of Joss Whedon’s series: human characters, with human strengths and weaknesses. And a nearly 5:1 ratio of female to male characters, just for a change. ;)

It’s frustrating that so many years later, it seems like we have less screen time for women, let alone realistic women, than ever. It’s frustrating that the response to that inequity for many seems to have been to create impossible women, just to compete with the complete lack of normal ones. But it’s heartening that this is a discussion that doesn’t seem to be going away lately, despite the lack of support for equality that seems to permeate the SFF world in particular. I just wonder if those in the Old Guard of both film and publishing have noticed that a female-centric and female-positive show like Buffy, ten years after it left the stage, still has a huge number of male fans. Because the excuse is usually that “girl stuff” doesn’t sell. Maybe it just hasn’t occurred to them that “people stuff” does, and girls and women are actually people. So let’s keep telling them until they get it.

3 is a Magic Number (Giveaway)

Three represents the holy trinity in a number of religions, considered by some to be the perfect number. It's also the standard number of wishes one gets in a fairytale. Or the number of chances you get, if you're Little Bunny Foo Foo, to stop scooping up field mice and bopping them on their heads before you're turned into a goon by the Good Fairy. Fairies, genies, witches...they like doing things in threes.

Three is also a magic number in the construction of fiction. Trilogies are a staple of the SF/F world, especially in epic fantasy. Why do we tell epic stories in threes? It's the basis of the three-act play, dating back to the epics of ancient Greece. It's also the logical extension of the modern story arc: Beginning, Middle, End. And it certainly makes a convenient framework for an author who wants tell a long, complex story without overwhelming readers with one truly epic tome. Plus, it gets the reader to come back for more. And three also makes for a lovely multiple: the trilogy of trilogies, such as the original intent for the Star Wars saga. (Hopefully, soon to be realized. I'm looking at you, J.J. Abrams.)

But the End part is what I'm particularly concerned with today.

It's release day for The Armies of Heaven, the third book in my House of Arkhangel'sk trilogy. I'm excited to finally have the whole story out there, and yet sad to have come to an end of this particular story. One of the reasons I write in threes is that I have difficulty letting go, and it gives me a chance to hold on to the characters I love—whether I'm writing them or reading someone else's—without going on so long that it starts to lose its glow.

So today I say goodbye to Anazakia's journey. Begun in The Fallen Queen, and continued in The Midnight Court, The Armies of Heaven is where her journey ends. Because three is a magic number. Don't believe me? Listen to Schoolhouse Rock:

(Awesomely, it is exactly 3 minutes long.)

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The giveaway

In celebration of my book release day, I'm also giving away a trilogy of prizes: three winners will be chosen at random to receive one of three prizes: a $50 gift certificate to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, a set of three signed paperback copies of The House of Arkhangel'sk trilogy, and a copy of one of my favorite books and the inspiration for this story, Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, gorgeously depicted by Ukrainian illustrator Vladyslav Yerko. Enter using the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post.

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In Heaven, all hell has broken loose…

Full-scale war has broken out in Heaven, and Anazakia must embrace her destiny, leading an army of Virtues into battle against a Host of enemies to restore the House of Arkhangel’sk.

Furious with her for putting her trust in the angel who has done them all irreparable harm, Vasily tries to ignore his growing resentment, while Belphagor returns to the world of Man with a cadre of beautiful androgynous Virtues to restore the sundered alliance between the Fallen and the gypsy underground. Without their help in enlisting the terrestrial forces of Grigori and Nephilim, Anazakia’s Virtues are hopelessly outnumbered.

But there are more things in Heaven and Earth than any of them have dreamt of, and those they cannot see will mean the difference between victory and losing everything.

The Armies of Heaven is available now at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and more.
 
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Epic Fantasy: Where’s the Love?

Welcome to the second installment of Fantasy Week, the first in a series spotlighting the different speculative fiction subgenres we write in here at Here Be Magic.

I’m a fantasy writer, not a romance writer. I say this repeatedly to anyone who will listen—not because I think there’s anything wrong with romance; au contraire! I think romance belongs in everything. But I want to make sure no one is disappointed when they read my books expecting a traditional romantic plot with the push-pull of a hero and heroine trying to resist one another and failing, full of erotic tension and the eventual surrender of both in the unequivocal HEA. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve got that, too, but it’s only a part of the story.

My agent recently confirmed as much when I tried to write a traditional romantic suspense to sell to an established line. “I love your writing, as always,” she said. “But this isn’t really feeling like a romance to me.” Try as I might, I just can’t resist the allure of building my own world, creating my own mythology, and dragging my characters on an epic journey fraught with peril and rife with high stakes that can bring down entire kingdoms—or entire worlds.

Nevertheless, I spent the past week enmeshed in a different kind of alternate world: the world of the romance writer, at the RT Booklovers Convention. Because despite the fact that I don’t write romance, I can’t write fantasy without it. Fantasy without romance feels like it’s missing one of the most epic of adventures—the adventure of the human heart.

And that puts me smack-dab in the middle of a publishing conundrum. Romance readers are often a bit intimidated by the epic-ness of the epic fantasy. And fantasy readers have a tendency to be a tad suspicious when something looks like romance—despite the fact that at their core, many fantasies have a love story, though often underdeveloped. As a kid devouring both romance and fantasy, I always wished the fantasies had more of the former, and the romances more of the fantastical.

So there I sat at RT, surrounded by romance writers and readers, and feeling just as much a fish out of water as I did last November at the World Fantasy Convention. I’m some kind of chimera that can’t be classified. I have chocolate in my peanut butter. I may even be Frankenstein’s monster, stitched together with parts that work well together though they’ve come from different origins, but seeming a little scary and misshapen to those who’ve never seen one of me before. “What do you write?” people would ask. “Epic fantasy,” I’d reply, and then quickly add “with romantic elements” before they came at me with torches and pitchforks.

To most people who haven’t read the genre, when they hear “epic fantasy,” they think of 1,000-page paperweights full of elves and orcs and dragons, page after page of painstaking descriptions of drab medieval customs and complicated court intrigue with names no one can pronounce, and lots and lots of swords and sorcerers. And to be sure, books with those elements are epic fantasy, but none of those things are required to make a book an epic fantasy. What it requires, generally, is a uniquely invented world that is not our own, a protagonist whose problem is much larger than herself (her people and her world are depending on her and she usually has to fight someone powerful to save them), and magic. And what’s more magical than love? I say it fits right in with the epic.

Some of my favorite epic and romantic fantasies are Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Legacy series—its court intrigue woven together through highly charged erotic scenes, sacred prostitutes, and a healthy dose of BDSM; Lynn Flewelling’s Nightrunner series, with its sexy, fae-like m/m lovers as medieval Sherlock Holmesian detectives who are also scoundrels and thieves; and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. Yes, Harry Potter is as epic and romantic as they come.

So, really…what’s not to love about epic fantasy?

Don't forget to check out Sunday's kick-off post for Fantasy Week from Angela Highland on why she reads fantasy, and be sure to stop by every day this week for a new post from one of our fantasy writers.