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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
For me, Stacia Kane brought UF back to its gritty, noir-ish roots where the city and the world is as much a character as the protagonist…In sum, UNHOLY GHOSTS is part creepy horror, part old-school urban fantasy, and completely awesome. I say go out and buy it if it sounds interesting to you, because it’s not like anything you’ve read in a while. Trust me.
Unholy Ghosts is the first book in Stacia Kane’s new series and absolutely full of win! From the very start, Kane just draws the reader in effortlessly. Chess is unlike any other heroine you’ll ever read about… While I loved Chess, Terrible just stole the show for me. He was my favorite and no matter how much I loved the other characters, I lived for his parts.
Another thing that made Unholy Ghosts a book of never-ending awesomeness for me was the pace… There’s no awkward pauses or drawn-out monologue and that to me is brilliant. I don’t want to have to sigh in boredom or feel like the action overshadows everything else and in this book, neither happens. Unholy Ghosts is the beginning of a new Urban Fantasy series that I think it will be a huge hit. The characters are kick ass and the plot will have you on the edge of your seat. I absolutely recommend it!
Also, I’m very excited to tell you that the book soundtracks are up on iTunes!
See, for those who aren’t aware, music plays a fairly big part in Downside, and in the world of the book in general; punk rock, mostly, which as those of you who’ve been around for a while know was a big part of my life and is still what I generally listen to. Anyway, I mention several bands in the books, and since not all of it is going to be familiar to readers I thought it would be fun to create playlists and put them up, so if anyone wants to they can go ahead and download them.
The playlists for all three of the books are up, but I’m just going to link to the UNHOLY GHOSTS list at the moment, and to the other two as the books are released (but if you can’t wait, of course, feel free to click “other playlists by this user” or whatever the button is).
(And yes, ultimately I want to load all of this and more to Radio Downside, but that is unfortunately going to have to wait until I can afford to set up Radio Downside, which I’d hoped to be able to do back in december but things have just sort of happened. None of that is your problem or concern, of course, as I’ve said before; I’m just explaining why it’s taking so long.)
1. SKULLS by the Misfits.
2. ALTERNATIVE ULSTER by Stiff Little Fingers.
3. BLAST OFF by The Sonics
4. 354 by the Devil Dogs
5. I’M TALKING ABOUT YOU by Chuck Berry*
6. COME ON by Chuck Berry*
7. I WANNA BE YOUR DOG by The Stooges
8. KILL THE POOR by the Dead Kennedys
* The Chuck Berry songs are listed on iTunes as being from an album called “The Definitive Collection.” We had to change the album listing to get iTunes to recognize the songs as songs it sells and therefore allow us to upload them, but both songs were in fact ripped from one of the greatest albums of all time, The Great Twenty-Eight. Out of print, sadly, but I got a used copy on Amazon a few years back and cherish it like the precious bundle of awesomeness it is. I love Chuck Berry. No matter what he does with poop.
Anyway, there you go. I’m still hoping to find a way to get these loaded onto Canadian, Australian and UK/Eire iTunes so I can do giveaways for readers there, because I know you guys tend to get screwed a bit when it comes to contests from US authors so I’d like to at least do *something.* (So if you can help with that, please contact me.)
And I’m starting to freak out a little, to be honest. Eep!
So I have some stuff to share with you about UNHOLY GHOSTS, but first, this morning my Faerie had her preschool graduation, which was a big teary deal for Mommy. She’s been going to a Baptist preschool nearby; a Baptist school because A) it’s close; B) it’s not as expensive as most of the other schools; and C) most importantly, when we went to take a look at the place the staff were so friendly and charming and non-judgy, and they were so kind to Faerie, and she liked it so much. I haven’t regretted it once, although I admit it’s a tad weird when she starts asking questions about religion etc. etc. I’m happy for her to learn about religions, though, and about different people believing different things, and the school is seriously fantastic. Her official last day is Friday and I know I’m going to be a gibbering mess.
Aaanyway. Graduation was this morning, and the kids gave a little concert, which is awesome. Awesome not just because, you know, it’s our baby on that stage, but because there’s always that one boy who refuses to play along. At the Christmas concert he just stood and stared at the audience the whole time, leading the hubs and I to invent dialogue for him, such as “I don’t trust you people,” or the classic Buscemi-on-SNL-inspired, “You’re all dead and you don’t even know it.” Today he played along a little more, but when the kids sang how God is watching and knows everything, he stood there arms akimbo rather than doing the hand movement; the rest of the class was happy in the knowledge that God knows everything, but Surly was berating us. Warning us. Informing us that we’re not going to get away with shit, so we shouldn’t even think about it. Surly is awesome. Read the rest of this entry »
Fans of urban fantasy will find themselves sleep deprived after they start this new series. It’s that hard to put down. Characters with larger-than-life personalities rule against a dark and dangerous backdrop. This is an exciting world you’ll want to escape into again and again. Don’t worry, the next will be out in July!
I also have some VERY IMPORTANT NEWS. Due to some seekrit behind-the-scenes-y bookstore-and-publisher stuff, the release date for UNHOLY MAGIC, the second Downside book, has been delayed by two weeks to JULY 6TH. (Unless something changes, this means you Australia/New Zealand folks will get the book one week before the US, Canada, and the UK/Ireland. Yay you, you get to be the first ones finally, how cool!) Anyway. I apologize to everyone but about the delay but I swear it’s for a good reason and we just might have some stuff here to at least make the waiting easier. So make sure you check back!
First of all, oops. Remember how Ann Aguirre came and did that awesome guest post, with a contest? Well, see, I thought Ann was going to pick the winners, and Ann (quite reasonably) thought I would. So she emailed me the other day to ask who her winner was, and I of course felt stupid. Anyway. Again using my tried-and-tested-very-scientific-method of having my child pick a random number, I have now selected a winner, and I apologize to Ann and to all of you for the delay. The winner is: Commenter #26, Caitlin U!!
Caitlin, please email me your info, and I’ll forward it on to Ann ASAP.
Now, do I have something cool to show you guys!! HarperVoyager, who are publishing the Downside books in the UK and Australia, have put together a promotional video to celebrate their fifteen years of publishing the best fantasy/urban fantasy/all things kickass. (And seriously, they do; I have shelves of Voyager books from when we lived there.)
This video is AWESOME, guys. Seriously. I was all excited and giggly when I saw it, especially the bit with My Books. So check it out; it’s not superlong but it is supercool:
When you have a ho like Jaye Wells in your stable, yo.
I’ve been friends with Jaye for a while, and she is awesome. But what’s even more awesome are her books. See, last year when we were moving and all of that stuff, I really needed something to read during the journey. I grabbed a few books to take with me–can’t remember which ones–during a last-minute trip to my local Waterstone’s.
But what did I see there but Jaye’s RED-HEADED STEPCHILD. And lucky for me I did, too. Like I said, I don’t remember the names of the other books I bought to take along, but I know that after struggling to get through the first three or four chapters of each, I finally gave up and grabbed R-HS. Aaaaaaah. It was like finally getting to take a shower after four days of heavy physical work and sweat. I felt cleansed and refreshed. Yes, it’s first person and we all know that’s not my favorite thing. But, as with all the best first-person POVs, I hardly noticed. I loved the book. Good, crisp writing, likable characters who said interesting things and thought interesting things, humor in just the right places that was not over-the-top or silly (but also not mean-spirited, contrived-sounding snark). I practically cried, I was so happy to finally be reading a well-written book again.
Aaaanyway. The sequel, THE MAGE IN BLACK, comes out tomorrow, and to celebrate, I’ve invited Jaye here to do a guest blog (Ann Aguirre will be here next week, as well, so be prepared). Let’s all be nice to her, shall we? Heh.
We’re not done discussing writer/reader relationships, I don’t think, but for today there’s some other stuff to talk about, including something I’m really, really excited about.
First, a couple of links. My pal Mario Acevedo, he of the fun books and incredibly dirty mouth, is doing a contest and chat over at Bitten by Books today, so head on over and enter to win some of his awesome work. And, you know, to taunt him and stuff.
Second, I’m not sure how many of you are aware of This Week’s Amazon Controversy. In a nutshell, this weekend Amazon listed a bunch of very expensive graphic novels at bargain basement prices. The pricing info was picked up by Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool–he’s @BleedingCool on Twitter as well, and you should follow him, especially if you’re the sort of geek who reads comics or has any interest in comics or movies or whatever, or who, oh, dreams about Batman, or who downloaded “Voodoo Child” by the Rogue Traders and plays it in her car and then pretends that she is married to The Master, and then we make the Doctor my sex slave…oh, um, I mean, if you were that sort of geek, which of course I am not. Ha, ha! No, not me! Um. Anyway, Bleeding Cool is a great site.
So Rich picked up the story, and lots of people–including the hubs–flocked to Amazon to order books. (In fact, if you checked the top Amazon sellers on Sunday morning they were all hardcover graphic novels, which was quite cool). Then Amazon started processing some orders, and sending out emails saying that if you ordered more than one copy of a book your duplicate orders were canceled, but they would otherwise honor the price at which you purchased the books. Which is great, right? Except that now they’re just canceling people’s orders altogether, without notifying them, or with a rather short email that basically says, “Yeah, too bad.” So some people got their books at the advertised price, but most are being told Tough Luck. Rich discusses the emails and the reactions of disappointed readers here.
BUT. Here’s the big news, which I really hope you guys will be excited about. I’m sure many of you know who James D. Macdonald is, and how much he’s done for writers everywhere. And, if you haven’t read any of his books you totally need to.
Anyway. Jim periodically looks into self-publishing methods, to help out writers who choose to go that route for whatever reason. A few weeks ago he asked if anyone had anything they wanted made into a book, and, since I’d been planning/attempting for ages to put the Strumpet series together and set it up as a book, I offered it to him. I wrote a new little intro, and he wrote some back-cover copy for me, and there you go.
So for all of you who’ve asked me to do this, there you go. Have fun!
(Note: Yes, the series is still available on the blog here, and will continue to be. You do not need to buy the ebook or paperback to still access the series; I wrote it as a free blog series and it will remain so. This is just for those of you who wanted it to download all as one document for easy navigation, or so you don’t have to keep visiting my site to read it, or who like having a paperback, or whatever. Also, no, it is not available on Amazon or as a Kindle download; in the interests of keeping costs down we opted not to buy an ISBN, which means it won’t be listed in those places.)
So that’s it for today. We’re rather content-light, but given how Very Serious we were last week, and given how excited I am to finally have the Strumpet series out there in book form (It’s Alf! He’s back. In pog form), and given that I’m up to my knees in a new project…well. We’ll see how it goes the rest of the week.
What Stace had to say on Monday, February 15th, 2010
(In honor of this I’m doing a little contest, details at the end.)
So…let’s hop in the time machine, shall we? All the way back to September of 2007. I’d sold the second romance novel I ever wrote (after extensive edits and cleaning up and all of that stuff), a medieval non-erotic romance called The Black Dragon, to an epublisher called Triskelion Publishing, which later went belly-up. Thankfully I’d gotten my rights back and sold them to Cerridwen Press, Ellora’s Cave’s non-erotic imprint, before that happened, but I’m going to talk about that a bit more near the end of the post.
The Black Dragon was a big deal to me. It was, at the time, my favorite thing I’d written, in large part because when I wrote it I was thinking of all those great “old-school” style romances I read as a kid. I wanted to do an homage to them, a sort of throwback type of story. So it was written in a specific voice and with, I hoped, a specific sort of feel. I was inordinately fond of the story, and still am, to be honest, because I think I managed to at least somewhat capture that feeling I remembered from those old-school romances.
And of course I wanted a cover that sort of reflected that feeling, but I knew Triskelion’s cover art was…well…not always great. So I asked for a fairly plain cover, a sword of a field of red silk, maybe with a dragon shadow over it? Or failing that the H/h on the parapets of a castle at sunset, which was kind of an important scene in the book.
Below is what I got. I literally burst into tears when I saw it. My lovely book, stuck with that. I emailed and begged for a different model, or pose, or something, anything, to no avail. I was so horrified that when I posted it on my blog, the only positive thing I could say was that I liked the font they used for the title. It was truly nightmarish.
Anyway. The other day some of my fellow Reluctant Adults and I were talking about covers, and some of the covers we’d had throughout our careers, and linking to them and showing them. I happened to toss in the cover triskelion gave The Black Dragon, and Mario Acevedo–that scamp!–mentioned how much better it might be if Mark Henry’s face was on it rather than the original model.
This is the original cover (Cerridwen, of course, gave it a new cover, which I adored, and will post at the end as well):
