Stacia Kane

Okay, yes, I know this is so, so late. I was out of town and forgot to take my notebook with all the entry counts in it, and then we were doing this that and the other things, and it took a while to get everything organized, and then we–well, my husband–picked the winner last night but it was too late to post it here.

Here’s what we (again, my husband) did. I gave him the list of all of the entries–and some of you guys had thirty or forty of them!–and he entered them into a spreadsheet, which he then had shuffle randomly and picked the first name off the top. So, not a slips-of-paper-in-a-hat thing, but still totally random.

Anyway, the name at the top was…

CHELSEA, from Vampire Book Club!!

So Chelsea, send me an email, and we’ll talk.

For everyone else, I can’t thank you enough for playing along!

I am going to be starting the fourth book this week–I’d planned to start it today, actually, but see the aforementioned this-and-that-in-the-way, so I’m hoping to start by Friday. In the meantime, I’m working on a publishing wonk post for here.

I thought it might be fun, and maybe even interesting for some of you, to find out exactly what goes into producing a book; what the publisher actually does, and why it takes so damn long. Why it’s necessary for it to take so long. This is going to be part of the short series on editing I plan. And part of that is going to be sharing with you some actual copyedited pages from UNHOLY MAGIC and CITY OF GHOSTS (I don’t have the copyedited mss for UNHOLY GHOSTS), and some pre-edited scenes and bits of information about all three books.

So, I’m starting on that, hoping to get the first one up tomorrow, and in the meantime, yes, we have a winner!

First, yes, I do totally intend to reply to all comments and questions, both here and on Livejournal, from Wednesday’s big De-lurk. And again, I can’t thank you all enough! So many happy birthday wishes, so many great comments and questions. It was fantastic, as are all of you. I have to admit, though, next year I may do the De-lurk day on a day near my birthday but not actually on it; that was a lot to keep up with, between here, Facebook, and Twitter. Not that I’m complaining, at all; it was wonderful. But I may change it a bit next year so I can give everyone the attention I should.

We’re back home now, sigh. Being in Miami is always kind of bittersweet; fun but not fun. It’s always great to see Cori and her family. It’s always fun to drive around and know exactly where you are, and five or six different ways to get somewhere, and all of that. But at the same time it’s sad to see how much has changed. It’s sad to drive by places that were once important to you, and now they’re not. It’s sad to remember people you once knew that you don’t anymore, or even just the person you used to be, how young you were and how different. So yeah, Miami is kind of bittersweet. And I’m sad I didn’t get to see my brother either; the days flew by so fast and we were so busy, when I finally had a chance to call it was too late. But we’re hoping to go back in a couple of months.

But! We did go to the Mai-Kai for tiki drinks and dinner; it’s one of my absolute favorite places. And, to make things even more exciting, I wore a new dress. A new dress that isn’t even black.

Now, granted, I did buy two of the exact same dress (from Express; I don’t care that it’s a mall store, I almost always find something I love there that looks decent on me, and it’s one of the few stores that usually has my size in stock), and one of them is a very dark charcoal gray, which is just gorgeous. I absolutely adore this dress. But I decided the light color–it’s sort of a creamy pale peachy color–looked more tropical. And I had these shoes which look weird in the picture but are actually a gorgeous shade of blue, and have big flowers done in sequins on the outside.

So, enough prattling, I have questions to answer! And I’ll be announcing the Name a Character Contest winner on Monday! Here are a couple of pictures: first is me and the hubs, and second is me and the BFF, Cori. The one of Cori and me isn’t the most flattering picture ever taken of me (the flash totally washes me out and makes my eye makeup look kind of creepy), but what the hell, right? I said I’d share some pictures, and so I will. Plus, it’s proof that Cori actually exists! I’ve talked about her on the blog for years–we’ve been best friends for almost eleven years now–and UNHOLY GHOSTS is dedicated to her, because she’s my super beta reader and totally encouraged me to finish writing that book and sat on the phone brainstorming with me for hours, but this is the first chance I’ve had to share a picture of her or of us together. And I actually really like the one of me & hubs, which is a very rare thing, as I generally hate the way I photograph.

Also, yes, that is my husband sitting right behind us at the bar.
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As I think most of you know–I am stunned by the number of birthday messages I’ve gotten on Twitter and Facebook, I can’t thank you all enough!–today is my birthday. My Faerie, who is five, has decided I’m twenty-seven today, and I have told her she’s exactly right. So I’m sticking to that.

Anyway. Every year on my birthday I ask for those who lurk but never comment to just say hello. Of course you’re not obligated to in any way, but it’s fun for me to see who’s out there aside from the group who comments (not that I don’t adore them too). I just get a kick out of it, basically. And it’s even more fun if you leave a little message saying why you read here, or what types of posts you enjoy the most, or whatever–stuff I can use to make sure I’m giving you guys the types of posts you like to read. Remember, my job here on the blog is to entertain you, and make it something you enjoy reading. Yes, it’s mine, and I rant and stuff at times too, but in general, if I’m ranting I want it to be about things that interest you in some way.

And this year I thought we’d make it more fun–although I don’t actually think anyone is going to take me up on it, since you usually don’t–if you want to leave me a question in the comments, or whatever, and I’ll answer it as best as I can.

Again, you’re not obligated to comment, of course. Not at all. If you do comment you’re not obligated to tell me why you read here, or what types of posts you like the best, or what your favorite post was, or anything of that nature. You’re not obligated to ask a question in any way. But if you wanted to, that would be cool, and I would enjoy it.

So if you like, and if you feel comfortable, and if you want to, it would be great to hear from those of you I don’t usually hear from, in addition to those I do.

And just in case any of you lurkers are people who’ve emailed me, or if any of you who’ve emailed me stop by, I WILL reply, I’ve just not had a chance yet.

Also, again, huge apologies, I forgot to bring my notebook with the entry counts for the Name a Character Contest, so I’ll be announcing the winner on Monday, and I’m so sorry! Duh, I could have sworn I packed it.

So de-lurk away, if you like! And thanks again, everyone!

I am in Miami at the moment, staying at my best friend Cori’s house, and we’re doing all sorts of fun chatty things and going out for drinks and everything. So this is just going to be a quick little update, and I’m doing it today instead of tomorrow because I’ll be out pretty much all day tomorrow, and I do want to come back and check in for my birthday on Wednesday.

So, first thing I wanted to let you know is, a group of awesome readers have set up a Goodreads group for fans of the Downside books! The group is called “I Gots Terrible Fever,” and you can join it here.

Second, after I get back home I am going to be compiling my doc of deleted scenes from CITY OF GHOSTS, so look for those to go up on the site within the next couple of weeks. I’m also considering putting in some trivia, like the way Chess’s last name came from the Salem Witch Trials, or whatever. I think that might be kinda fun, and I want to give you guys as much information as you might want; I like websites to be really informative and full of different kinds of things, don’t you?

And I am still considering what we’ll do as far as t-shirts and stuff, but we definitely are going to do something. So please keep those ideas coming!

And, we have some new reviews for CITY OF GHOSTS!

Abigail at All Things Urban Fantasy gave it what she calls an “uber-rare” five out of five!:

After devouring the first two Downside Ghost books in all their addictive, screwed up goodness, I had crazy, impossibly high hopes for CITY OF GHOSTS. And Stacia Kane didn’t disappoint in this action packed, scary cool, emotionally naked urban fantasy that I can still feel racing through my veins.

Niki Bruce, who reviews for several major newspapers and publications in Australia, did a joint review of UNHOLY MAGIC and CITY OF GHOSTS (with a link to her review of UNHOLY GHOSTS, which I hadn’t seen, and is great!) says, among other things:

Chess is the perfect anti-heroine; the antidote to the soppy, love obsessed teens dominating the urban fantasy genre at the moment. There’s not a vampire or werewolf in sight – thank god – and the gritty truth of Chess’ life adds depth to what could be dismissed as “just another fantasy novel”.
There are more books in the Downside Ghosts series to come; I can’t wait.

The book got five out of five stars from SupernaturalSnark, who says:

This series is addicting, and I’m as sure to enter withdrawal waiting for the next book as Chess would be without her drug of choice.

And I know there are more, but those are all I could bring immediately to mind, and I have to go hang out with Cori now.

Oh, and when I come back on Wednesday…as you know, I normally do a De-lurk day for my birthday. This year I think we’ll do a bit of that, but I thought it might also be fun–although it probably won’t work, because I’ve asked it before and not gotten the kind of response I’d hoped for–if you guys, any of you, whether lurkers or people who regularly comment/participate, have any questions you want to leave in the comments, I’d be happy to answer them!

Also, I am STUPID and left my notebook with the counts for everyone’s Name a Character Contest entries at home. We’re going home on Thursday, so I will endeavor to announce the winner(s) on Monday; I’m so sorry, everyone! I thought I’d remembered to grab it! Sigh.

And that’s it for the day.

Well! Last night (or actually early this morning) I sent Frauke at Croco Designs, the lady who designed this fabulous site and still does the more complicated updates for me (which is most of them, frankly), a very very long list of updates. Included in those are a bunch of interview links, and bunch of guest blog links (mostly about different aspects of the Downside books), some new sidebar links, the Downside playlists with buy links, and a bunch of other stuff. I also sent her a separate file with four or five deleted scenes from UNHOLY MAGIC, with commentary explaining why they were deleted. I don’t actually have any deleted scenes for UNHOLY GHOSTS, to be honest, but there are a few for CITY OF GHOSTS as well, and those will go up a couple of weeks after that book’s release. Which is Tuesday! Ack!

(One thing about the deleted scenes that I think will be really fun: I wrote a scene for UM that ended up getting cut. But I really really liked the scene, so I rewrote a little bit of it–the intro part, basically–and stuck it in CITY OF GHOSTS. But as I edited CoG, I decided the scene still didn’t work as written, so I rewrote it again, extensively this time. So there will be a few versions of that scene, and you’ll be able to compare them all, if you’re the type of person who enjoys stuff like that.)

So look for all of that soon. I’m really excited about it.

Another thing I’m quite excited about is the fact that my blog series “Be a Sex-writing Strumpet,” with which I know some of you are familiar, is now available on Kindle! So you can buy a paperback from Lulu, or an ebook from Lulu, or a Kindle version from Amazon. And of course, as always, the series is free here on the blog; just click the “be a sex-writing strumpet” tag in the sidebar.

I offer the series as an actual book because I had a lot of requests to do so, and I charge for it in those formats because people convinced me to do so by saying they wanted to pay me something for it, but you absolutely do not have to buy the book to read and enjoy the series. You don’t and you never will have to. I wrote it as a blog series, and it will remain a blog series. The book formats are just there to make it easier for people if they like, and so they don’t have to keep clicking all over my blog if they want to read it. I still get website hits for that series almost every day, which just stuns me; if you type “be a se” into google the second auto-finish term it offers is “be a sex-writing strumpet.” It’s just insane, it really is. I never imagined when I wrote it that people would enjoy it so much and find it so useful, and that’s amazingly gratifying. Also, having it on Amazon offers people a chance to write a review for it, which would be fantastic; it’d be really cool to see some feedback on it after all this time! And of course you could all review all of my books if you want, heh.

Also exciting to me is the Name a Character Contest! I’m thrilled at how enthusiastic you all are! Thank you so much! I did want to let you know that I am checking the #cityofghosts tag on Twitter regularly, and keeping track of the entries there, as well as the emails and blog post links I’m getting. If at any time you want to double-check the number of entries you have, feel free to email either the Downside Army email address or me, or use the contact form here on the site (which of course also comes to me). Make sure you include your Twitter name, if you have one, or whatever other information I might need to identify you.

Tomorrow evening sometime I plan to post a new snippety excerpt from CITY OF GHOSTS, so be on the lookout for that!

I know I say this a lot, and you guys are probably tired of hearing it, but I really honestly am amazed by how enthusiastic the response has been to the series. I never expected it, I really didn’t, and it’s absolutely amazing. I can’t thank you all enough.

So let’s see, what else? I’m going to be popping down to the RWA convention in Orlando next week for a couple of days. I know, I know, it’s RWA, but I’m not actually registering/paying for the convention, I’m just hanging out in the bar, really. I’d decided–and basically committed to–doing so when it was supposed to be in Nashville, which is only like two hours away. Of course, tragic floods intervened, and now it’s in Orlando which is considerably farther, but like I said, I’d already committed. And it’s not a bad drive. I like driving by myself. I mean, I like to drive, period, but I especially like driving by myself. I can turn the music up loud and sing along, I can flip through the radio stations all I want, stop or don’t stop as I please…whee! I’m almost more excited about the drive than the con itself, much like I was when I drove to Massachusetts to see Caitlin before we went to RT. Of course, I was excited about the convention, but that really was an awfully fun drive.

Anyway, I think this post is unfortunately a bit dull. Too much news and stuff to keep track of. I’ll try to be more fun again shortly. For now my head is so full of nervousness (over CoG’s release; what if you all hate it? What if nobody buys it?), projects I’m working on (loosely mentally plotting the 4th Downside book, and lots of stuff for the new WIP/series I’m working on), netbooks (hee, I am totally getting one asap!), our trip to Florida to see my BFF next month–we’ll be there for my birthday–and of course the usual family things. So forgive me, please. I’ll be more interesting next time. Anything you want me to blog about? Feel free to ask!

Oh! And speaking of questions, I wanted to let everyone know that this Saturday the 24th at three pm, I’ll be participating in Twitter’s first #UFChat! You can find a bit more info about it here. Either way, come and hang out, follow the hash tag, and please ask any questions you want, as many as you want! I’m hoping it’s going to be a lot of fun (and, you know, that people actually participate).

One week to the release of CITY OF GHOSTS, and I’m doing a big contest, so stay tuned for details!

Let’s clear some other things out of the way first. I have some really exciting news! We’ve sold Polish rights to the Megan Chase series to Amber Publishing, the same company putting out the Polish Downside books! Foreign translations are just the coolest thing, so I’m really thrilled about this!

And speaking of the Downside books, we have a couple of new UNHOLY MAGIC reviews!

Vampire Book Club gives it five stars and says:

With increased intensity, Kane delivers an action-packed, dark urban fantasy novel that will leave you reeling for days after finishing it. (We actually pre-ordered the third novel, City of Ghosts, the day after completion of Unholy Magic because we don’t want to waste even a day not knowing what will happen with Chess, her job, the love-triangle and the others within Downside.)

Smokin’ Hot Books also gives it five stars (to both books in one review, actually):

Unholy Ghosts and Unholy Magic are two of the best books I’ve read of 2010 and 2009. I’m not going to lie, the second book will tear your heart out, you may even find yourself emotionally ‘stress eating’ but so worth it. I promise! This series has grit, angst, violence, and pulls you in with each page – if you haven’t read this series, get thee to a bookstore post haste!

Vampire Book Club also has an interview with me, and a giveaway contest for both UNHOLY GHOSTS and UNHOLY MAGIC. So if you haven’t yet read them, there’s your chance!

There’s another interview with me, conducted by Daniela, a very sweet German blogger I chanced upon one day (she was blogging about GEISTERFLUT, the German edition of UNHOLY GHOSTS which will be released in Feb 2011, and I said hello, and it went on from there). Anyway, she asked me some kind of neat questions, and you can find it here. The interview is first in English, then in German; hee, look at my perfect German! And don’t you love that German cover? I can’t wait to see what they do with the other two! Obviously, the bangs aren’t there, ha, but who cares when it’s that pretty and atmospheric?

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Wow, this is late in the day to be posting.

Seriously, guys, I cannot recall ever being this busy in my life. I mean, in normal everyday life, not, like, the weeks before my children were born when suddenly the entire house needed to be scrubbed and redecorated, or the weeks before my wedding when the entire house needed to be scrubbed and redecorated and I had a houseful of guests and I needed to get manicures and hairdos and fittings and all of that stuff, or when we move. This is just my daily task-list growing longer and longer. (Oh, and before I forget, did you all see the UNHOLY MAGIC playlist on iTunes? You know I don’t get paid or anything when you purchase it, but the artists do; I just put them together in case anyone was curious about the music in the books and would like to hear it. This way you don’t have to hunt around and not know which songs are mentioned or whatever.)

I just finished a short story for an anthology; it’s a Downside story but because I didn’t want to give spoilers, and am well aware that most readers have never heard of me or my books, I wrote it from an outsider’s point of view, which was fun. You know what the most fun part of it was, though, which is really weird? Getting to actually describe Chess head to foot. You know, it’s hard to find ways to describe characters when you write from their POV; you don’t want to use hoary old tricks like them looking at themselves in the mirror, and really, just about any other sort of trick to describe your characters feel hoary.

MC: Oh, Friend #1, I hate my hair.

Friend #1: Nonsense. I wish I had long blond curls like yours.

Do you know what I mean? I don’t describe my characters too closely, I don’t think of them in terms of what actor they look like and would never describe them that way. I like to leave that up to you guys to fill in, really. Which makes me think of a fun contest! Which I may mention at the end of this post.

Anyway. So it was really fun to write a short where, because the MC of that story doesn’t know these people, he can actually take in the details of their appearances. They’re still not really facially described, but there’s a much more complete description, down to things like what Chess’s bag actually looks like. (I’ll share that one; it’s faded army-green canvas.) The story is tentatively titled Rick the Brave, but I’m still trying to come up with something better.

Now I have two other projects on my plate, one of which is another short for something else, and one of which is a new series-starter WIP which I’m extremely excited about. I’m not super far into it yet, but what I have I’m very happy with, which is a great feeling. It’s tentatively called Stone and Steam, but that will probably change.

I also have a to-do list which includes five interviews, which I really need to get to. And, I’ve got a couple of dozen emails and forum messages in my inbox from readers, relating to the Downside books, which I swear I will answer, my days have just been disappearing from me lately. But I do get those emails, I do read them, and I do appreciate them immensely. Nothing in this world is as amazing as getting an email from a reader who loved your work. (Well, okay. Sorry readers, but there are a few better moments, I have to admit. Holding your baby for the first time is pretty fucking amazing. But outside of stuff like that, reader email tops the list.)

BUT. That does bring me to a question most of the emails have been asking, and a ton of people on Twitter have been asking, as well as here on the blog. And I really wasn’t able to answer the question, although I’ve known the answer for, oh, three weeks or so now. Ready?

YES. There WILL be more Downside books!!

I don’t have any more details I can share as to number or dates or anything, although I think I can pretty safely say, considering it’s now July, that we’re talking about next year. We’re still working a lot of details out. But I’m extremely pleased and excited, and I hope you guys are too. Read the rest of this entry »

Oooh, this is so exciting!

I know a few of you already know Bernita Harris, from around the wide wide internet, but if you don’t, here’s a little introduction.

Back when I first started blogging as December–well, actually, I found Miss Snark, and wanted to comment there, so needed to set up a Blogger blog, and that’s what I set it up as–I noticed this particular commenter there, this very smart and gentle and funny lady named Bernita. And then she started showing up on my blog, which was a surprise–a lovely one, of course, but a surprise nonetheless. (The fact that other people started showing up on my blog as well surprised me every time.) So of course I started reading her blog, and it was delightful and smart. This went on for a couple of years. Bernita was there to cheer my every success, and the success of everyone else in her wide circle of friends; people are simply drawn to Bernita.

Occasionally Bernita would post snippets from the book she was working on, a fun paranormal about a character named Lillie St. Claire. And I always thought they were great; snappy and fun, well-written, interesting…and I was right. bernita finally submitted the book to Carina Press, and they of course snapped it up, and now you can buy DARK AND DISORDERLY, a delightful book by a truly delightful lady. I urge you to do so.

So without further ado, here’s Bernita’s post (with occasional comment from me in brackets, just for laughs).

No Sex? What Do You Mean, No Sex?

Stacia, you blessed girl, thank you for having me here today.

A recent poll at Dear Author indicated that 30% or so of readers skim sex scenes. I don’t understand that. Once the basic plot has been established, I’ve been known to skim until I get to the sex scenes! I dearly want to know how the writer has used intimacy to explore and develop the relationship. I have nothing against sex scenes. Dear me, no. [Oh, sure, you say that. But I still feel betrayed--SK]

But. There is no explicit sex in Dark and Disorderly. I admit it. Erotic fail! Oh, there is body-to-body contact and nothing chaste about it either—like this:

“You warned me you were a danger, Leannan, and I think this is what you meant,” he said, and fitted his wicked mouth to my open one. His wicked tongue. Instant lust. I wanted to wrap my legs around him, lock my ankles and pull him tighter. Public place with people passing by be damned, indeed.

I despised myself for that impulse. I despised him for my impulse.

So I bit him.

And it’s not that Johnny doesn’t try to get lucky, more than once:

“Nathan didn’t like to kiss,” I mumbled. “He didn’t like face to face…” Why had I said that?

“Selfish, stupid bastard,” said Johnny, pressing my fist against his chest, moving my hand in slow circles against the sleek fabric of his sweater, then sliding my fingers slowly lower toward his belt. “I like it very much. I like to watch a woman’s face when I make love to her. Lillie, let me take you home.”

As you can see, I took Stacia’s “How To Be A Sex Writing Strumpet” course–and failed. (There’s something puzzling and contradictory about getting an “F” for that, though.) [I hardly think that's failure--SK]

However, Lillie has some quaint, old-fashioned attitudes and though she is strongly attracted to the big, ugly lunk of a psi-crime detective; in the scene above she’s known Johnny Thresher barely a week. A very confusing, busy, dangerous week at that, with a zombie bursting through the front door, a grave-robbing and a riot and so on. She suspects Johnny might be just looking for a casual lay; but at the same time she has the feeling he’s not the sort who thinks with his balls. And there is the additional problem of her husband rather recently and indecently dead and who doesn’t want to stay that way. A husband who, while not destroying her libido, obviously, fractured her sense of worth as a woman. Lillie is cautious because she had been impulsive before; she’d been taken in by smooth flattery once.

Even though sex and death, sex and danger, are irreversibly entwined in our psyches, hot ’n torrid, pick the horizontal/vertical surface of your choice, did not seem to fit with the characters or the plot at this time. Dark and Disorderly does not contain explicit sex. Violence, now, and ghosts and bodies and murder, that’s a different case altogether… [Sigh. I guess violence and ghosts and bodies and murder and grave-robbing work as substitutes.--SK]

Dark and Disorderly: The Adventures of Lillie St. Claire, a paranormal suspense by Bernita Harris, is available from Carina Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most places where ebooks are sold. The first chapter is a free download here. You can find me at An Innocent A-Blog, and I’m on Facebook, somewhere.

Have you all entered the Ginormous “preorder SHADES OF GRAY” contest yet? Go do that!

Also, the other day I had a really cool (I think) idea, and since I know there are several booksellers who read this blog I’m going to go ahead and mention it here. There are all sorts of dating services and things like that all over the internet, right? And bars with Ladies Nights and organizations that do Singles Nights. Well, why not do a Singles Night in a bookstore?

Think about it. In looking for someone to date or whatever, don’t you want to make sure it’s someone who reads? I can’t imagine being with someone who doesn’t read. Not to mention, if you have someone who regularly buys books and hangs out in bookstores…perhaps it’s wrong of me but I can’t help thinking readers are a superior class of person.

And it doesn’t just have to be some sort of hook-up thing. Why not do a book club for singles? Think about moving to a new city, say, where you don’t know anybody. One of the first things you do is find the nearest bookstore, right? What if that bookstore had some sort of club or group for single people to make friends? Friends who read.

It may not be the greatest idea, sure. It’s probably not going to change the world or anything. But I think it would be fun; I’d like to see bookstores bring in more customers, and become, I don’t know, bigger parts of the community and peoples’ lives. So I think all of you should think about this, and suggest it to your bookstore, and see what they think.

Also. I know I mentioned the other day that I was considering entering this year’s Blogathon? (The site is still set for 2009, but they’ll be updating it and opening to registrations soon.) Anyway, what you do is update your blog every half hour for 24 hours straight. And the reason why you do this is to raise money for charity. I’m planning on blogging for RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network.

And I’m really hoping some of you will help me, either by signing up to blog yourselves, or by sponsoring me with donations. You can donate a lump sum or an hourly sum (like, a dollar for every hour I manage to stay awake).

I’ll post more detail after registration is opened. But please consider it. Also, if the Blogathon people give me permission, I just *might* be inclined to do a couple of short stories for the ‘thon–Megan and Greyson’s wedding, perhaps, or a short Downside story–if I get enough interest. Either way I think it’s going to be a lot of fun, and I really hope some of you will want to participate too.

Now, on to new reviews! From Sara’s Urban Fantasy blog:

Chess was a very unique individual. I’ve never before read about a main character that was also addicted to drugs, and it was a very fresh idea for the urban fantasy genre. In a genre full of kick ass bounty hunters and assassins and law enforcement officers, it was a breath of fresh air to read about a less than perfect, flawed character that read almost like an anti-hero.

From Buckeye Girl:

I think that this book should have come with a do-not-read-before-going-to-bed-or -you-will-be-up-all-night disclaimer. I didn’t want to put [it] down once it got going. There were so many twists and turns! There just aren’t any boundaries in this book…this book is utterly compelling.

Oh! I almost forgot a really important thing! I’ve begun the rather long and slow process of going back through all of my old blog entries and tagging them. (See, I used to blog on Blogger–until just last year, in fact, when this site opened–and while all of my old entries were imported, none of them were tagged.) It’s made a bit more complicated by the fact that I’m trying to keep the tags consistent with my Livejournal tags, so need to have the post up in more than one window.

Anyway. I’ve gotten a bit of it done so far. I’m creating a new Category–For Writers–to put all of my writing/publishing type posts under, so you can look in that category as well as just clicking the tags. Also, you’ll notice quite a few new tags over there, which I used on lj but not over here.

So I’m hoping to have that finished at some point, maybe by the end of the summer. There are some good posts back there, stuff I really enjoyed writing and am still proud of, so I’m glad they’ll be easier to find.

But before we get to why and how and all of that, a few links!

Today I’m doing a guest blog post at The Witchy Chicks and talking about the magic system in the Downside books and what inspired it. Which is actually a subject I haven’t covered anywhere else, so if you’re at all interested in that, head on over there!

And, we have some new reviews. First is this embarrassingly glowing review from Barnes & Noble’s Paul Goat Allen, on the B&N Explorations blog. Paul’s been a professional book reviewer and heavily involved in genre fiction–especially sf/f–for over twenty years, so he really knows what he’s talking about when it comes to UF. Which is why this made me all blushy and shy:

This is an ambitious novel, a novel that shuns the formulaic pitfalls and conventionality of other bestselling paranormal fantasy sagas. This is Stacia Kane at the top of her game—it is a writer evolved, a storyteller matured, an imagination fully unleashed upon the world…Dark, stylish, and wildly original…

Then there’s this one from the Fiction Vixen, which contains one of my absolute favorite lines:

I think most people will say they like it when an author takes risks, goes for something different and writes outside the box. After reading Unholy Ghosts, I have to wonder if Stacia Kane is aware there is a box. Really, Unholy Ghosts pushes the limits in what we’re seeing in Urban Fantasy today…[it's] one of the best Urban Fantasy stories I’ve read this year. It’s rich with details, the suspense is heart stopping at times, and the world building is fabulously unique. Don’t let my rant about the drug use deter you from reading this book, you would be missing out if you did… Stacia Kane has taken some risks with smashing results.

Also, my friends Caitlin Kittredge and Jackie Kessler have a new book coming out very soon, and they’re having a huge super-special pre-order contest for it! Go check it out, and pre-order SHADES OF GREY today!

I’ll be back Monday or Tuesday–since I don’t usually blog on Mondays anymore–with my superspiffy idea that I had that I think would be bunches of fun for readers and am really hoping someone tries. Plus whatever other stuff I can think of to talk about. And as always, if there’s something you want to know, or want me to blog about, let me know, either in comments or through email!

Oops! There was one more thing I wanted to mention. I’m considering entering a the Blogathon at the end of July; it would entail blogging every half hour for 24 hours to raise money for charity (in my case I’d be blogging for RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, which is the US’s biggest anti-sexual assault organizations.

Anyway, you collect sponsors to raise money, so I’m wondering, would anyone be interested in sponsoring me if I do it? I’m waiting to hear back from them as to whether I’d be able to blog here or not; you’re not supposed to use Blogathon to promote yourself in any way, and because my blog is connected to my website which is of course designed to promote my work, I’m just waiting for the okay from them. I know it’s probably okay but I don’t want to assume, you know? So if you’d be interested let me know.

Have a great weekend!