Tuesday, December 18, 2012

WARM BODIES

Everyone LOVES zombies, right?? LOL



Coming in January, 2013!!


He who makes wishes of the damned must accept the consequences of releasing them.

When Graham returns home from the war, he finds himself longing for something he no longer deserves—Anna, the love he left behind three years ago.

When a mysterious old woman begs him to retrieve her trinket—an old tinderbox—then disappears, he’s compelled to rub it and make a wish. He wishes to have Anna by his side…and she suddenly appears! They want the night to explore and pleasure each other.

But the tinderbox’s black magic is powerful and brings a price—a horde of walking corpses that will stop at nothing to sate their craving for flesh.

Wishes can’t drive the ravenous dead back into their graves. Graham and Anna only succeed in raising an army of zombies that will destroy everyone in their path—starting with the two of them?

Add to Wishlist

Thursday, December 13, 2012

GUEST AUTHOR: Jenny Schwartz

Jenny!! I'm so glad Jenny Schwartz is here and talking about her new book, which is out now with Harlequin's new Australian imprint, Escape Publishing!



Hi, JK! Thanks for the chance to visit your blog. Now, I’ve chartered the Airbus and I want everyone to get on board. Forget snow and flu and miserable trips to malls crammed with Christmas shoppers. Here are your tickets to Australia, the sunshine country where Christmas is hot and the romance even hotter!

Australia is embarking on a romance revolution. New digital romance imprints are opening, intent on bringing Australian voices to the romance scene.  

Escape Publishing is Harlequin’s new Australian digital imprint and I have a short story just released with them. I know! A short story! Digital publishing is giving new life to shorter fiction. All the emotional punch of a full-length novel, but able to be devoured in a stolen hour.

Okay. So I lied about the Airbus. Sorry. On the plus side, you all in the northern hemisphere get to eat roasted chestnuts, and I love chestnuts. But if you are pining for sunshine, casual glamour and ROMANCE here’s your chance to win a copy of “Drawing Closer”. Just leave a comment on this blog to go in the draw.



Drawing Closer

Zoe Loyola has a secret. Just between her and her sketchbook, she loves sculptor Nick Gordon. Her drawings of him are hot and naked.

Nick has a secret, too. He’s being blackmailed. Protecting his family means ignoring his desire for Zoe.

But in the world of art, passion breaks every rule and secrets are made for sharing.

***
Jenny Schwartz is a West Australian author. Her high school yearbook predicted she’d be a writer – something about always having her nose in a book. When not living up to others’ expectations, she enjoys lazy days in the suburbs and is working on a collection of life-saving recipes, “Simple Meals for Forgetful Cooks”. 

You can catch up with Jenny at her website, on Twitter and Facebook .

Monday, December 10, 2012

THE WILD WONDERS OF WORLD-BUILDING



I love my antho sister, Stacy Gail, and I was soooo happy to hear that she was going to be a part of another fantastic Carina Press Anthology this year! I have to tell you, I think she took it as a dare that my story Far From Broken made her cry last year, so she was determined that I would be the one who cried after reading HOW THE GLITCH SAVED CHRISTMAS....which I DID! SO FREAKIN' HARD.   

I'm happy to welcome her today, with her new antho-sisters, Anna Hackett and Sasha Summers! 

~JK Coi 
 

First off, thanks so much to JK Coi for hosting us. We—Anna Hackett, Sasha Summers and Stacy Gail—are so glad to be here!




In Carina Press’s sci-fi anthology, A GALACTIC HOLIDAY, some serious out-of-this-world imagination had to be engaged in order to create the distant world of Perma, the ice moon of Galileo and a futuristic Chicago cityscape.  From foods and traditions to sights, sounds and smells, these three worlds had to be alien and different enough to bring the reader along on a far-flung journey of wonder, and consistent enough that these imagined worlds could gain a foothold in the reader’s reality.

But how do you make an imagined world become real in a reader’s mind?

The three authors from A GALACTIC HOLIDAY put a vast amount of thought into how they built their sci-fi worlds, and each one went about it a little differently.  Come to find out, there’s no wrong way to build a world.

Anna:  When I started thinking about combining sci-fi with the holidays, I wanted to explore the winter holiday of Yule – so an ice planet came to mind. With science-fiction, you are always trying to balance the sci-fi elements with elements that are familiar to the reader. In WINTER FUSION, my heroine, Brinn is from the ice world of Perma. It has some technology but not too much as they are a developing world. There are plenty of familiar elements – people still cook their food, they sing, they go to work. But they also happen to have interstellar ships, cars with autopilot and nanocoatings that stop ice melting. But an important aspect we can all relate to is the Perman need to look after the environment of their planet.

My hero, Savan, on the other hand, is from a planet covered in a megacity. Rendar is an energy-dependent world -- everything is powered and people live for personal gratification and success. While this world is different from our own, I think their issues are ones we all worry about today – our reliance on energy, the increase in the “gadgets” in our lives, the fast pace of life.

What I love most about writing science-fiction romance is that even on amazing distant worlds with incredible high-tech gadgets, things that are important to us today—environment, energy, family and love—are still vital.

Sasha:  I just kind of dove in. I started in space, in Riley’s (the heroines) ship in GALILEO'S HOLIDAY. Space (‘the black’) is cold and sterile, metal and minimalist, and her ‘happy place’.  And since Riley was going to have to face all sorts of things outside of her comfort zone that meant Galileo’s Station had to be the exact opposite – low-tech and crowded. Once I had that figured out, I could focus on the gadgets – the tools, the shields that protect the Station from cryptids and raiders, the food (or lack of real food), the chutes, – even the plumbing. Basically, I let my imagination run wild – and had oodles of fun with it!

Stacy:  Whenever I write a futuristic romance, the first thing I do is make a list of ordinary events that everyone on the planet normally does…and then I try my best to re-imagine what those ordinary events might be like a century or two from now.  For instance: The brushing of teeth?  That would be replaced by a single swish of plaque-killing, tooth-brightening Denti-Wash. Five seconds and you’re done.

What about the daily hassle of popping contacts into poor blind peepers?  Forget it.  In my world the gene for bad eyesight is modified, so now virtually everyone has perfect vision.  And for those who want more-than-perfect vision (like me!), there would be expensive/black market optic prosthetics that would look just like the real deal.  (It’s not just pervy adolescent boys who want X-ray vision, you know. ;) )

But the most important—and potentially dangerous—facet of the future that I can truly see happening is the creation of human-like androids to do humankind’s menial tasks.  These robotic creations—these fake people—are the very elements that live in the heart of HOW THE GLITCH SAVED CHRISTMAS.  It’s a fine line humanity treads when they make machines look like humans, and all too soon the question of what truly defines “life” arises.


These worlds are full of adventure, wonder and the enduring power of love.  The authors of A GALACTIC HOLIDAY hope that you’ll enjoy reading about them as much as they enjoyed creating them.


Take a moment to enter our fabulous giveaway! :)

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/070de90/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway



A GALACTIC HOLIDAYCarina Press | Amazon | B&N | All Romance
Anna HackettWebsite | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
Stacy GailWebsite | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
Sasha SummersWebsite | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads  

Thursday, December 06, 2012

Coming Soon: IMMORTAL DUTY (Book 1)

Don't miss IMMORTAL DUTY (Book 1, Immortals) (formerly My Immortal)

Coming December 26, 2012 from Ellora's Cave!


Walking home from a late-night shift at the hospital, Amy Bennett unwittingly stumbles into the violent, mysterious world of sexy Rhys Morgan. She wants him at once, but he’s a man with dangerous secrets, and despite the explosive attraction between them he seems determined to push her away. 

One of the oldest of his kind, the intense Immortal warrior Rhys spends his nights on the streets of Chandler protecting the city from the demons that threaten to overrun it. He’s always been strong, but now he has a weakness…Amy. 

His gift of premonition has always been more of a curse, and especially since Amy’s death has been haunting his dreams. But she’s part of his world now, and he doesn’t know how to save her, or how to protect his heart.

Publisher’s Note: This book was previously published elsewhere as My Immortal.

Excerpt:

An Excerpt From: IMMORTAL DUTY
Copyright © J.K. COI, 2012
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.
Amy.

Rhys was jerked from sleep. His heart pounded hard within the confines of his chest, and his breathing was heavy and labored, though he couldn’t remember why. The strangling panic had propelled him forward to sit straight up in the bed, though he couldn’t remember doing it. He did remember shouting her name.

Amy.

It was hanging there, heavy and thick, all around him. More than a word—a warning, an omen, so filled with foreboding that it still vibrated in the air, charging the darkness like a specter lurking in the room.

Amy.

Rhys had been having the dreams off and on for the last several weeks, but now they were coming practically every night. In the last week he had been hitting the sheets later and later in an attempt to keep the images at bay, and only after working himself into complete physical exhaustion first. So far those efforts had been for nothing.

“Christ,” he muttered, rubbing both hands briskly over the top of his head and through his shaggy hair to help shake off the dream. It didn’t work.

His scowl was wasted on the empty room. The only thing the extra workouts had accomplished was to make him more unnerved when he was wrenched from sleep…at three o’clock in the freakin’ morning.

The last remnants of the dream began to blur. The sensation of having cotton stuffed deep down his throat started to ease and his breathing slowly returned to normal, but in his mind he could still see her eyes, her tears…and the blood.

Rhys often had premonitions of things to come—it was one of the gifts he had been granted when he’d become an Immortal so many years ago. So he knew this wasn’t about his subconscious dragging out some random innocuous memory of a stranger he may have passed on the street, never to see again. No, whatever this was, it came from that place inside of him that knew.

Knew him for what he was, where he came from.

What he’d done.

The images that now lingered fuzzily in his mind screamed of that kind of paranormal psychic shit. He would be a fool to ignore the warning. And Rhys was no fool.

A few visions he could handle. Compared to the mess that was his daily routine, that added bonus was just icing on the cake that was his life. Yet something about these particular visions made him feel edgy and worried, and it didn’t help that they always had him jerking awake soaked to the skin as he sweated out a deep state of fear.

He was afraid for her. It was a fear that lingered, growing heavy in his stomach like a ball of lead, consuming not only his sleep but his waking hours.

Which was stupid. Rhys had never met the woman who had the current starring role in his dreams. He most definitely would have remembered if he had. So then why did he feel…protective, as if with her it was something personal and not just the job?

Whatever. He knew that feeling for a lie because he made a point of not getting personal with anyone.
Still, he was certain she was no figment of his imagination, whether a phantom or a living, breathing person, out there…somewhere.

The time was coming.

The reason for the dreams—the connection—was still hidden, but considering how often he was having them now, Rhys had a feeling sitting heavy in his gut that the time to meet in person was fast approaching. And it wasn’t going to be over lattés at Starbucks.

With a grimace he stood, resolutely shoving the distracting thoughts from his mind. There wasn’t time for any of that right now. He had a mission, a death to avenge.

And vengeance was a time-consuming business.

Rhys looked at the floor and grabbed a shirt from the pile of clothes lying by the bed. He quickly tugged it on. Clean pants were harder to find. The ones he’d had on the night before were stained with blood and gore. That shit was a bitch to get out of denim, but he couldn’t very well take the clothes to the cleaners. For some reason it always seemed to invite way too many questions.

Go figure.

Rifling through a drawer for a clean pair of jeans, he thought of what he had to do, and the familiar itch of desperation crawled his bones. The demon responsible for his friend’s death had all but vanished into thin air and Rhys was afraid it had already been too long, that the trail was too cold.

“Damn.” Muttering to himself, he continued searching the room for a pair of jeans. He was going to have to clean this place up…someday. He should also make a trip out to buy clothes. Just the thought sent a shiver of distaste up his spine, but the chore couldn’t be avoided much longer. He’d had to throw away three pairs in the last week, and since he wasn’t exactly a clothes whore at the best of times, that left him with the pair he’d been wearing last night and—

Shit.

He stomped to the overlarge closet, but besides an impressive array of deadly weapons that encompassed everything from submachines to broadswords, there was very little else inside.

Let there be another pair of jeans lying around somewhere. Coffee stains he could handle. Tears and holes he would put up with. Please, just—

A-ha.

Reaching deep inside the closet, he pulled out an old, faded pair of jeans and dragged them up and over his thighs. He swore under his breath. They were tight. 1980s heavy metal band tight. Well, that was too damn bad because he sure as hell wasn’t going out naked, and he had a hundred better things to do than hang out at the mall like a damn teenager.

Such as tracking and killing a demon.

His pursuit had lost some momentum since the demon had disappeared—okay, it had died, been cremated and buried six feet under the ground—but Rhys had no doubt the monster would eventually turn up to kill again, and he couldn’t exactly sit around waiting for it to happen, usually tried not to let things like that happen if he could help it. Unnecessary human deaths were bad for business.

Rhys had spent weeks trolling the streets, searching every back alley and deserted building, searching the warehouses along the wharf and searching clubs, bars and every other den of iniquity Chandler boasted. Every demon he snagged was “interrogated” before being sent on an exclusive, one-way trip back to where it came from, but so far there had been nothing, no sign. All his usual underground connections were tapped out, and at this point there was only one more option available to him. Whatever it took, he would catch the demon.

It would mean gathering the others like him—the Immortals.

Fuck. He would do it. His friend’s honor, and Rhys’ own gnawing guilt, demanded no less.

Rhys’ first responsibility was to find the young one. He had kept a discreet eye on Baron Silver over the last several weeks but had otherwise admittedly neglected his duty when it came to the newest Immortal.

He no longer had the luxury of ignoring Duncan’s replacement.

NEXT UP! 

Immortal Kiss (Book 2) 


Monday, December 03, 2012

The Next Big Thing

Hello! It's been a while since I blogged because things have been crazy busy, but I'm going to be more regular (like taking my fibre in the morning). With that in mind, let's start this Pre-New Year's Resolution of blogging more by doing the Next Big Thing blog hop!

I was tagged by the fabulous Hannah Kate -- who posted her Next Big Thing here.

Here goes...

Since I'm working on editing my Immortals series to get them ready for re-release with Ellora's Cave, I'll talk about that. Book 1 is Immortal Duty (formerly called My Immortal), and it's being released December 26 (Happy Boxing Day!) but right now I'm working on Immortal Kiss!

Where did you get the idea for the book? 

Well, I loved Baron's character from the first moment he walked on the page in book 1. I also knew he was going to need a really strong heroine, someone who could match him all the way! I loved when Max put her hand up and offered to take him on :)

What genre does your book fall under?

This is paranormal erotic romance

What actors would you want to play your characters in a movie rendition? 

Ugh, I hate picking movie actors. Baron is a blond GOD. He's young, hot, ex-military, and smart-mouthed. I guess the perfect guy would actually be Michael Trevino who plays Tyler Lockwood on Vampire Diaries (picture him blond). For Max, I can easily see Jennifer Lawrence playing that part. She's strong and smart and pretty.

Give a one-sentence synopsis of your book. 

I'm just going to give you the blurb because I'm lazy and it's a lot easier  *grin*


It has been two years since Baron's initiation into the world of the Immortals, and during those two years he's been training with them, setting aside his past to embrace the challenges of his new future…a future without Maxine Deveraux.
 
Maxine is strong, determined, and loyal to a fault. The last person she wants to have to face is Baron Silver, the man who broke her heart, leaving her without an explanation or even a goodbye. But Maxine gave her word to Baron's brother Jackson that she'd track him down and bring him home, and Max always keeps her promises.
 
When Baron encounters a vicious vampire who vows to destroy everything he loves, it doesn't faze him in the least. He gave up everything he loved along with his humanity. But then the demon attacks Maxine, leaving her broken and battered on Barron's doorstep and he realizes there are still things he can lose...things he can't live without.


Will your book be self-published?

No. This series is being published with Ellora's Cave.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I wrote this book a few years ago, and I think it was finished in 3 months.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I don't remember if anyone inspired me to write this particular book. Over the years though, I've been inspired to keep writing by many people. My family keeps me going, my writing partners encourage me, and the people who enjoy my books make it all worthwhile!

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

The Immortals series was previously published by a much smaller publisher a few years ago and I'm very excited to be getting it back out there into reader's hands. I've had lots of requests for the books to come back. They'll be re-edited and updated a bit, but....I'm also writing the FIFTH book, which will be about the twins!

My five (5) writers for next Wednesday are:

Christine D'Abo
Cynthia Sax
PG Forte
Stacy Gail
Jenny Schwartz