Last Day of the Zyanniversary

We’ve arrived at the last day of the Zyanniversary! It’s been a fun week. There were free books EVERY SINGLE DAY on Facebook, so if you missed some of them, pop over, scroll back through the posts and hook yourself up.

We shall end things, fittingly, with talking about what’s coming up for Zy. On Friday I posted a sneak peak of the first page of Book 4. I should be releasing that later in 2017, probably October or November. It’ll depend on other things I’ve got cooking with my agent.

But the story will pick up two years after the events of Vengeance and Vermouth. A LOT has changed for Zy and her friends… but some things haven’t, and the past always comes back to haunt us, doesn’t it? Is Alexander really gone for good? What if Anna got together with another of Zy’s enemies and they started wreaking some major havoc in South America? Of course Lucifer always has some tricks up his sleeve. And there’s the matter of Zy and Eli… and Zy and Donovan… oh, boy(s)…

So, if you’re not already signed up for my newsletter and want to know when it releases (and other fun book news), click here.

I hope you’ve had a blast this week - I sure have! And you know Zyan did. She always does J

We came. We partied. It was epic. 

The Dreaded Pitch and a Teaser

Happy Friday! Today I need your help, writer friends. I think the thing I am most nervous about at the conference is giving my verbal pitch to an agent. There's a reason I'm a writer, guys. I'm not always the best speaker. There are a lot of "ums" and "like" and "you know?", paired with a tendency to ramble and make lame jokes.

So how the heck do I pull off this pitch thing? Do I have to come up with one of those run-on sentences that sums up my whole book? Do I do it sort of like I'm reading my query letter? Am I supposed to memorize the thing? How long should I talk for? Has anyone reading this ever done one? Spill forth knowledge to me (us)!

In other news, I was trying to submit a 250 word excerpt from Countless to one of Miss Snark's First Victim's critique posts, but it is limited to 25 entries and I missed it. Which was very frustrating, because I pulled over on the side of the highway so I wouldn't miss the opening of the submission window, and at exactly 6:00 I sent the excerpt via my phone. However, the dumb email bot said I had submitted at 5:59 and rejected the entry. By the time I was able to get back into my email and submit again 3 minutes later, it had already filled up. This incident was followed by expletives and angry monster noises. So, I'm going to post my clip here to relieve said frustration. Enjoy!

He looked at her with a strange intensity. “You should know what I am. You should know what you are.” A vortex of emotion swirled in his eyes – frustration, fascination, even a trace of fear. “How is it you don’t know?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Know what? What is it I’m supposed to know?” Her voice quavered.

He put his palm on the side of her face and her eyes opened. “You should know that you are the biggest mystery of all.”

Eva’s brain was trying to swim through what he’d just said, when suddenly his lips were pressing against hers.

She struggled and shoved back hard on his chest. “What the hell are you doing, Ambrose?” But through her anger she felt something emanating from him, a swirl of magic like she’d felt in her vision.

"I’m trying to show you something,” he said, pulling her against him again. His lips found hers and the power washed around them and she didn’t pull away.

The magic felt familiar and normal, it surrounded and melded with her. Then a power of her own shimmered against it. It felt so recognizable that she didn’t know how she hadn’t noticed its absence before. Like a missing limb or lack of vision, it was so vital a part of her she couldn’t imagine not having it.

“Do you understand now?” he asked, piercing her with a laser gaze.“You’re not normal, Eva. We share that.”
 

A Saturday of Sunshine and Starbucks

I've been trying to stick to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday blog post schedule, but alas, my internet quit working Thursday night.  I had to spend 45 minutes on the phone last night with the internet provider trying to get them to fix it.  It would appear for the moment they have.

It's been a lovely day so far.  I woke up early and went to a 5k run with my sister, and the morning was chilly and sunshiney gorgeous.  Then we went to Starbucks and I got a grande pumpkin latte, which led to an amazing caffeine high, which led to being productive with some yard work.  Now I'm ready to take a luscious afternoon nap.  So, here is your teaser for the week, from Chapter Two.  Have a great weekend!

She was abruptly aware of her senses as they came into sharp, diamond focus: images flashing into her peripheral vision, her ears picking up hundreds of distinct sounds, her skin tingling all over. Her heart quickened almost painfully and her throat went dry. All of this happened in a fraction of a second, her body reacting to some unknown threat.

Adding to her panic was the fact that she’d never experienced anything like it before. She had no idea why her body was reacting as it was, but she abruptly felt an uncontrollable urge to look behind her and see if anyone was following her. It was a completely irrational instinct since of course many people were behind her on the crowded street.

She turned her head, very slowly, to look behind her. Not knowing what she was looking for, her eyes scanned the crowd, skipping over each figure in less than a second. Her logical mind was absent as some sort of foreign intuition took over. Then her eyes rested on what she knew without a doubt was the source of her instinctual fear: about twenty feet back, a tall figure in a dark cloak strode swiftly in her direction.

Friday Nibble

Okay, so here's the snippet of the week, from Chapter One:

Compared to the noise of the street, the dark hush of the store was almost unsettling. The faint smell of old books, leather and silver polish tickled her nose. Wandering over to a set of marble bookends, she brushed her fingers over their cool surface. This place is deserted – maybe it’s closed after all, she reflected uneasily.

As the thought lingered in her mind, she noticed to her relief a spot of bright light coming from the back of the store. She moved towards it, passing by a row of tall wooden shelves holding hundreds of leather clad volumes. Eva took a couple off the shelf and flipped through them, then stopped to admire a case of vintage costume jewelry, arrayed like exotic birds and flowers captured in a terrarium. The low light made the colors look rich and deep, swimmable depths of sapphire, topaz and ruby.

Happy Friday!!!

Teaser of the week

So, on FaceBook I started posting a little snippet of my novel once a week, just two or three sentences.  I figured I'd do the same here, but longer.  This is from my prologue.

She wore a pale blue skirt that just touched the back of her knees. His eyes traced the moon pale curve of her bare calves, down to her black stilettos, then back up to the raven hair cascading halfway down her back in loose curls. And although she was turned away from him, he knew her face – the full lips, thin nose and most of all the deep green eyes. Green like a highland meadow or a piece of lustrous sea glass.

Only twenty feet separated them now. He moved forward with calm assuredness, closing the distance. Ten feet. He could smell her now, her soft fragrance of blossoming jasmine tingeing the air. Five feet. Reaching out a thin hand, his fingertips touched one perfect obsidian curl. Taking a deep, focused breath, he called on the dark magic that would end her existence, not only her body but her soul as well. His only regret was she had no idea what was about to hit her.

For funsies - query from my main character's POV

It started the day I was followed on the street by a man in a dark cloak – cheesy sounding in the extreme, I’m aware. And actually, it all began the day before, I just didn’t realize it at the time.

I was a corporate climber, living a normal life in NYC, planning a wedding to the perfect guy. I tried to tell myself the cloaked guy wasn’t following me – after all, why would I be of interest? But after I started having crazy visions, talking to ghosts, and breaking things with my mind, I couldn’t really avoid it any longer – my life had taken a serious detour into oncoming magical traffic.

Admitting I’m a witch was probably the most major shift in consciousness of my life. Discovering I’ve lived countless lifetimes is even more mind blowing. Finding out an immortal being has hunted and killed me in most of those lives and now found me in this one? Icing on the cake.

Oh, and I forgot something really important – I’m in love with the man in my past life memories (no, not the one who kills me, good lord!). Just when I think things can’t get worse, he shows up. Which should make things better, right? Yeah, if only he remembered who I was.

So now I’ve broken up with my fiancé, fled the city, ticked off a pack of shape shifters, made out with their leader (which is so not like me), befriended a teen witch who was my sister in a past life, all while trying to figure out how to escape the inevitable murder that’s ended all of my recent existences. Why am I such a delectable target? When I figure it out I’ll let you know.