Ragged Feathers

Yes, you read that right. Remember that book I was talking about–the alt-France epic fantasy thing? Well, my dears, I am pleased and proud to announce the release of The Hedgewitch Queen.

“If not for a muddy skirt, I would be dead like all the rest. Dead…or worse, perhaps.”

Vianne di Rocancheil has been largely content to play the gawky provincial. As lady in waiting at the Court of Arquitaine, she studies her books, watches for intrigue, and shepherds her foolhardy Princesse safely through the glittering whirl. Court is a sometimes-unpleasant waltz, especially for the unwary, but Vianne treads its measured steps well.

Unfortunately, the dance has changed. Treachery is afoot in gilded and velvet halls. A sorcerous conspiracy is unleashed, with blood, death, and warfare close behind. Her Princesse murdered and her own life in jeopardy, Vianne must flee, carrying the fate of her land with her— the Great Seal of Arquitaine, awake after its long sleep. Invasion threatens, civil war looms, and the conspiracy hunts for Vianne di Rocancheil, to kill or to use her against all she holds dear.

A life of dances, intrigues, and fashion has not prepared her for this. Nor has it prepared her for Tristan d’Arcenne, Captain of the King’s Guard and player in the most dangerous games conspiracy can devise. Yet to save her country and avenge her Princesse, Vianne will become what she must, say what she should, and do whatever is required.

A Queen can do no less.

You can read an excerpt here!

I am so excited. This is my very first ebook-first release. You know how I feel about ebooks, but I am in a position to take a bit of a chance here. Besides, I love and trust my editor. (Did you hear that, Miss DP? *cowers* Please don’t hurt me.) So this is a new thing, and during the month of December the book is priced at $2.99 in the US.

I am receiving two questions right now:

* “Will it be available in my country?” Hedgewitch is available in the US, UK, and Canada; check your favourite ebook retailer. I don’t know anything else; quite simply, I am not told.

* Will there be a paper version? I can only say (and I quote) “There are no plans for a paper release at this time.”

Unfortunately, those are the only answers I can give. The good news is that Book 2 of the series (it is a duology and only a duology, alas), The Bandit King, will be available digitally in June 2012.

I am pleased and proud as punch, dear Readers. I hope you enjoy Vianne’s adventures…

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Weren’t we just here, where I tell you how nervous release days make me? It seems like we were just here. *blinks*

I am proud and happy (as well as knocking knees with fear) to tell you that Reckoning, the fifth and final in the Strange Angels series, is officially released!

Nobody expected Dru Anderson to survive this long. Not Graves. Not Christophe. Not even Dru. She’s battled killer zombies, jealous djamphirs, and bloodthirsty suckers straight out of her worst nightmares. But now that Dru has bloomed into a full-fledged svetocha – rare, beautiful, and toxic to all vampires – the worst is yet to come.

Because getting out alive is going to cost more than she’s ever imagined. And in the end, is her survival really worth the sacrifice?

Now available at Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, BooksAMillion, Powell’s, the Book Depository, and Amazon!

I am sad to be saying goodbye to Dru. From the first moment I saw her standing in her kitchen, staring at the back door while a zombie’s fleshless finger tapped against the glass, I’ve known that she would grow up and continue on. It’s very bittersweet, but I’m proud of her. She’s learned a lot along the way, and through it all she’s remained that same smart, driven, incredibly loyal girl. Growing up is never easy–it’s even less easy when there’s vampires looking to tear your head off and betrayal lurking around every corner.

But I think she’s done just fine, and I’m glad she has exactly the right ending.

Now I’m going to go be a puddle of frayed release-day nerves. See you around.

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This morning’s run was wonderful. I felt like I had little wings on my feet. Every once in a while, everything clicks and a good run comes along. It’s like a perfect day of writing. It keeps you coming back for more and enduring the days when it feels like peeling one’s own skin off in strips.

I am full of pleasant thoughts today. You’ve been warned.

However, the predawn was incredibly foggy, which made me think of Stephen King’s Strawberry Spring. Which led me to thinking about Springheel Jack. Along with plague pits, you can tell I’m working on the next Bannon & Clare. (Their first adventure, The Iron Wyrm Affair, is in revision now.)

I was planning what I’d do if Springheel Jack suddenly appeared in the fog, and perhaps that gave me some extra speed. “Be prepared” is not just a Boy Scout motto.

Let’s see, what else? I’m glad you guys are enjoying the Squirrel!Terror serial. When Neo recovered, things got incredibly interesting, but I am not going to write that for a little while. Here, instead you can have a peek at the first chapter of Reckoning, which is due out soon. I am excited and sad all at once–excited to share the culmination of Dru’s story, and sad to say goodbye to her.

I’m incredibly interested in and excited about Glitch right now. It’s sort of like Animal Crossing for grownups. (Although Animal Crossing is nice too.) It’s like WoW without killing, which can be a relief. (Sometimes, though, I just want to get a glass of wine and murder some pixels.) I like the idea of a game where you water plants, pet animals, build and cook things, and basically learn to be cooperative. It balances out my antisocial tendencies. *snort*

I’m very boring right now. I had some unpleasant news that knocked the wind out of me not too long ago; my writing partner, who is always full of good advice, has been reminding me to plan for what I’m frightened of instead of just thrashing about in fear. The planning certainly seems a more productive use of one’s time, plus it provides an feeling of control. That feeling may be illusory, but it certainly helps. So I’m retreating into my shell for a wee bit, a process that is probably helped by the fact that a nice cool autumn is setting in and spending time curled up in the house is not only soothing but pleasant. I tend to be a winter writer, anyway–my most productive seasons are the ones with filthy weather.

Ach, I’m nattering on. It’s Wednesday. I seem to have lost the knack of Wednesdays.

Over and out.

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It is just way too bright and sunny today. And it’s a good thing I’m damn stubborn, or I would have quit after three miles today and not had that awesome endorphin-kick runner’s high. Not to mention the drift of honeysuckle, the cheerful “good morning”s from other runners–I content myself with a “Morning!” in return, because I can’t be cheerful while struggling to stay upright and moving. I would have also missed having the shaded park all to myself for a few glorious circuits. That was nice.

So, announcements!

* If you’ve ever wondered how Selene returned to Saint City, you can read the brand-new Selene and Nikolai story, Just Ask in the upcoming Mammoth Book of Hot Romance.

* Also upcoming is Reckoning, the final book in the Strange Angels series. The end of August will see a bindup of bboks one and two, Strange Angels and Betrayals with an all-new, lovely cover.

* November will also see the final Jill Kismet book, Angel Town.

* You can now buy all five of the Dante Valentine novels in one smoking-hot omnibus. (Personal demon not included, sorry.) Also, Graphic Audio has released parts one and two of Working For The Devil, I believe part 1 of Dead Man Rising is also available.

* I will be attending SpoCon in August. Not quite sure what my schedule will look like, but I’ll be there on panels etc. I will also be at the Cedar Hills Crossing Powells annual SF/F Authorfest in ?November?, more details on that as it gets closer.

* There’s an interview with me up over at the Gatekeeper’s Post.

* I can’t really talk about this yet, but it’s up on Amazon. Tempty tempty.

* A big “welcome home” shout-out to TP, back from the wilds of Europe. *evil wink*

…I’m sure there’s something I’ve forgotten, but I haven’t even finished my coffee yet, so forgive me. Off I go to find a name that means “a hunter” for a wooden garden-boy. He wants Calhoun, but I’m not sure he should have it. He’s not the protagonist, so he doesn’t really get what he wants as far as names.

Damn characters. Over and out.

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That’s right, it’s the release week for the fifth Jill Kismet book, Heaven’s Spite.

To celebrate, I’ll be giving away three signed copies, over at the Deadline Dames. I regret that I can only ship inside the US, but that’s the way things are. To make it even, I’ll also be giving away a $20 Amazon gift certificate. And what must you do to win these wonderful prizes?

Simple! Just comment on this Deadline Dames post by midnight on Sunday, October 31 (the witching hour on Samhain, even). But not just any old comment, please. You can give your favorite quote, give a Dame a compliment, tell us your favorite Halloween candy or spooky story. The winners will be picked with the help of Random.org, and I may pick a special prize for originality. You never can tell.

I’ll announce the winners next Friday, and (I promise! I promise!) will have the long-awaited next Process Post then.

Thank you for reading! I’m very excited that Jill’s next adventures are out in the world.

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I know I promised another in the ongoing series about my writing process, but the Deadline Dames are running a snippet extravaganza this week! So, I’ll be writing more about process next Friday.

Today, you’re going to get a peek at an upcoming book. I went back and forth for a long time wondering which book I should excerpt here. Generally I don’t give excerpts, because I don’t like spoiling books. I prefer to have the story whole, laid out in front of the reader in its complete form as much as possible. Plus, I feel very strongly that each event in a novel, each scene, each piece of dialogue, is integral to every other piece. Taking one out is akin to playing a very dangerous game of Jenga and risking a collapse of the work as a whole.

I take these things too seriously. But then, that’s my job. Anyway.

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Today is an overcoming-dragons type of day.

I hate driving in Portland. It’s really not Portland’s fault, even though I swear to God the streets change, especially at night. No, most of my stress comes from the fact that I rarely have access to a reliable car, so on top of the navigational stress (which I handle with the GPS that came with my cell phone, thank you God) there’s also the will-my-vehicle-blow-up-on-me stress.

Today, however, I had a reliable car (thanks to Subaru Shawn, who rocks) and the GPS, and plenty of time. So I made it out to the Cedar Hills Crossing Powell’s–remember, I’m going to be there on May 25th, signing with Ilona Andrews and Devon Monk–and, to put whipped cream and a cherry on the whole day, I navigated successfully to Deek & Bryan’s Next Adventure for climbing gear.

It was worth trying to find parking around Grand Avenue in the middle of the day, because the staff are so helpful and nice. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone having a bad experience there. Once I found the climbing section and actually opened my mouth to ask questions (sports supply stores always make me feel lazy and underachieving and shy) I got the help of a very nice young man who took me patiently through buying my first pair of climbing shoes and my very first harness. (My one moment of caviling? “No flowers on the harness, please. Just…no flowers. I’m not a flower type of girl. Unless it’s a flesh-eating monster flower…oh my God, did I just say that out loud?”) I didn’t catch the young man’s name, but his mother must be very proud of him.

Now I’m home and I’ve bolted lunch and I have to get dear, sweet, stubborn Dru in more trouble. I feel refreshed and renewed, instead of wrung-out and panicked. Which is a big change. A reliable vehicle does indeed make all the difference. I know, it sounds boring and pedestrian. But little by little I’m doing things I’ve never done before, and my life is getting so much better. The process of breaking out of the chrysalis proceeds apace, and it’s nice out here. It’s like all the work of the past year, and especially all the very intense work of the last six months, has suddenly started to pay off. Where before it was just a slog, now I’m seeing actual results.

I like that. I’ll keep it.

And now for chaos, panic, and vampire attacks. Catch you later, gator.

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When Monday morning is a relief, you know your weekend was borked.

It wasn’t all bad. I did, for example, get three bookcases put together. Now I have a whole reference bookcase, instead of my reference books scattered all over the house in uneven lumps. A book collection is like oatmeal–you want some clumps, but easy ones. Anyway, my Tanith Lee collection is sharing a much bigger case with my Latin books now, and my working metaphysical library has been taken from my altar and placed in my bedroom. Now I have to organize it instead of finding the book I want by a type of intuitive leap. *snort* Ah, maybe I should leave the metaphysical ones jumbled to keep my intuition sharp.

I was amazed to find out just how much poetry I have, too. I should set aside a shelf for that. It’s odd, because there aren’t many poets I truly like. Blake, Shelley, Keats, all right, some Byron when I can forget what he was like in real life. Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Dowson–of course, and I shelve them together because I’m That Way. Sexton, Plath, Auden, most e.e. cummings, Marge Piercy, some (not all) Kerouac; then there’s the shelf with Yehuda Amichai, Neruda, Yeats, and Dylan Thomas. The Beat Reader, for some reason, goes there instead of with Kerouac. Plus, Mira and Rumi go together, but with a reasonable, respectful distance between their physical selves. Some other poets–Sappho, Propertius, Ovid–go with Greek and Latin books instead of in poetry per se. Just like I shelve Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther books with the WWII history books. Still, there is one Ovid and one Sappho that go with the poetry just because the translations are so beautiful.

My bookshelves are organized, it just might not look that way to the innocent bystander. I can generally find any book I own in seconds, unless (this is a big thing) someone else who lives here has moved it. I HATE that, because I can’t rest until I find a particular book, if I’m wanting to loan it to someone or just cross-check something in it. I don’t mind people reading the damn books, that’s what they’re for, but I DO like them being put back where you found them. Otherwise I get all messed up. Some people who have lived with me have even hid books from me just to make me crazy.

I always hated that.

Anyway. My weekend was long, complex, draining, but also productive. I put all my Nabokov in my bedroom (a dangerous place, I know) and it’s sharing a small bookshelf with my French and (very small) Russian Revolution collections. This amuses me every time I pass it, though it probably would not amuse him.

Of course, the dust is still settling and small leftover bits are still being sorted into their proper places. But the bulk of the work is done, all that needs to happen now is tiny little shifts in adjustment. A book collection (I hesitate to use the word library in connection with my crowd of well-loved, dusty, ill-behaved and eclectic books, both “working” and leisurely) is like a creative brain. There’s enough order to make things reasonable, and a little disorder to open the door to magic.

So now that I’ve completely bored you talking about my bookshelves, off I go to the rest of my day. I have a little slice of time where I can work only on writing the things I want to write, and there’s a certain self-hating, murderous fae who would like some of my attention.

See you in a bit, dear Reader…

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You can win a copy of Strange Angels over at the Library Lounge Lizard. (Just one of those sentences I never thought I’d type. Wow.)

Really I am very boring today. There is not much to report. So here, have a few links:

* The Symphony of Science, or Carl Sagan rocks the Universe. The videos made me cry. We do indeed live on a wondrous planet in the middle of a wondrous universe. Anyone who is bored has only to look at their own hand, or barring that, out their window. There is stuff to be interested in all over.

* Maria Geraci on “why read things that offend you?” Here’s the germ of it:

I guess what I’m trying to say is that stories are about real people. And real people (especially single men and women in their 20’s and 30’s and beyond) have sex, occasionally cuss and do other assorted things/behaviors that you’d find in any movie/TV series out there. Here’s another big shocker: Teenagers also have sex and use profanity! Maria Geraci

* Hivelogic’s Podcast Equipment Guide. I keep thinking I’ll do some podcasting one of these days, maybe when the kids are in school and I have some time and quiet.

Yeah, time and quiet. Why are you laughing? It could happen.

* Kit Whitfield, on how submissions are like dating. Hilarious, and full of no-nonsense advice and information.

You say: ‘I know you don’t usually accept unsolicited manuscripts, but please, just have a look at this.’
Dating equivalent: ‘I know you’re married, but please, just go out with me once.’ Kit Whitfield

*snort* *giggle* *choke* *guffaw*

In other news, I’m thinking of putting together a new section for the website, where I’ll list the “soundtracks” to all the books. It will be a Project, and an enjoyable one. Once I finish the current Jill book (hit 50K last night, huzzah!) I’ll look into that. If, of course, there’s interest. Would anyone care to hear about the songs I put together for, say, the Valentine series? The Watcher books didn’t get a soundtrack, but pretty much everything else has. Drop me a line in the comments if you’d be interested in that section on the site, mmmkay?

Last but not least: Tzia, thanks for pointing out I’d forgotten to link to Borders. I’ve fixed that. And to Maria from Russia, thank you for your kind letter. It is very good to know one’s work has made someone else happy. I don’t mind your questions, even though I can’t answer a lot of them–I am just thrilled that you’ve read the books so deeply as to have those questions. Thank you very much.

And now I bid you a civil adieu. I’ve got Perry strapped into an iron frame and Jill standing there with a flechette. Methinks this is about to get interesting.

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I’ve finally got a final itinerary, which means I can announce a mini whirlwind tour, featuring the inimitable Richelle Mead. Oh, and yours truly. Next week we’ll be shaking it up in Seattle and California!

Tuesday, August 25th

4pm University Bookstore, Seattle, WA. The University Bookstore is right on the Ave, the street where the Anna Beguines start out.

7pm Borders, Redmond WA. I believe this is a Richelle-only event. She is Pure Awesome. Go and see her!

Wednesday, August 26th

4pm Mrs. Nelson’s Toy and Book Shop, Los Angeles, CA. This shop looks to be so dangerous–I’m probably going to have to ship stuff home to the little people. However, they are hosting us at the Carnegie Cultural Center at 123 D Street in Upland, CA. So I might not be weighed down with toys on the trip home after all.

I think I might cry.

Thursday, August 27th

7pm Not Your Mothers Book Club, hosted by Books Inc. – 855 El Camino Road, Palo Alto, CA. I’ve never been to Palo Alto. It should be awesome.

Please, please, if you’re a fan of Richelle’s, read the guidelines posted here. This will help it be good for everyone. Also, if you’re one of my Readers, the bookstores will probably have copies of my other books hanging around. If you’re looking to pick up a few of my titles, please try to do it at the bookstores hosting us. This supports the store, the author (which would be me) and lets the publisher know these events are a Good Idea.

And that’s all the news about upcoming events next week. It will be a whirlwind, and after next Monday blogging will not re-commence until September 1. Sort of like a working vacation. The really hard thing will be getting my wordcount in–writing longhand is going to take some getting used to again…

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