Stacia Kane

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.

Four days and counting, my goodness. It’s almost here! And yes, as promised, I have another excerpt for you. Just a couple of quick things first (or probably last, since I bet you’ll go straight to the excerpt and then come back. That’s probably what I would do anyway, just like reading the last page when I get about 1/3 of the way through the book).

First, don’t forget tomorrow’s #UFChat on Twitter, which I’ll be answering questions in. You can get a bit more information on it here, if you like. It starts at 6 pm EST (3 PST) and I really hope you all come and say hi! Well, really, I hope anyone comes to say hi. This is the sort of event that gives me nightmares imagining it will just be me sitting there and no one else showing up. Seriously.

Next, there’s a new interview with me at The Literary Project. It’s not really about the books, it’s more about writing and career and personal stuff, and a bit about the difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romance. So worth checking out if any of that interests you.

A review or two! Murder by the Book bookseller John does a joint review of UM and CoG here:

I can’t say enough about how wonderful this whole series [is]. The plotting over the three book arc is top-notch. Once I finished City of Ghosts I felt like the three books together told a bigger story. That doesn’t happen often with books in a series.

And Book Chick City gives CoG a 10/10 review(!!) and says:

Unholy Ghosts and Unholy Magic stayed with me long after I read them and it was no different with City of Ghosts. There’s so many layers from the complex characters to the awesome world building of Downside. It’s full of witchy magic, action and romance, I literally couldn’t put this book down until I had read the very last word. I could go on and on about these books, they are just so brilliant! If you haven’t started this series, you MUST!

And last but not least, don’t forget the big-ass Name a Character Contest! I’m really excited by the number of entries I’ve gotten so far, and I hope to get plenty more, too! And I’m really hoping word spreads and more people give the books a try, too.

But anyway! On to the excerpt!! This is from Chapter Thirty.

And again, it is a bit spoilery. I tried to find one that wasn’t, and this one isn’t terribly so, but do be warned. Click at your own risk!

Read the rest of this entry »

I have a few final thoughts on my little art and compromise series, but first I have a couple of new reviews for UNHOLY MAGIC I’d like to share.

Book Chick City calls it “one of the best books [she's] ever read,” and says:

For me, Unholy Magic has the precise combination and balance of everything I love about the urban fantasy genre: action, romance, complex but likeable characters and world building. I adored this book so much from beginning to end – just perfect.

Smexy Books says:

Kane has written one of the most dark and disturbing Urban Fantasy’s I have read in a long time. This story drug me in, striped me bare, then rebuilt me page by page till the end. Enticing and addicting from page one…

5 out of 5 from The Fiction Vixen: In trying to come up with an adjective to describe the over all tone and feel of this story, I came up short. Gritty seems weak in reference to this book and just does not cover it. I had a brief twitter conversation about the Downside series and I eventually came up with this: Unholy Magic spits on gritty and calls its mother names. Yes, this book is that bad ass! Stacia Kane has written an amazing, spine tingling novel in Unholy Magic, taking me by surprise by surpassing even the brilliance of its predecessor Unholy Ghosts.

Last but certainly not least, we have Barnes & Noble’s Paul Goat Allen on the B&N Explorations blog, a man who’s been reading and reviewing fantasy for twenty years or so:

The bottom line is this – never before in paranormal fantasy have I read a series that features the combination of grand scale world building, labyrinthine storyline, superb character development, and social relevance. Stacia Kane’s Downside saga is taking paranormal fantasy to another level right before our eyes…

I challenge anyone who has never read a paranormal fantasy before to read this series – I’ll guarantee you that you never look at paranormal fantasy the same way again.

So, um, all of those are really nice to get.

But they do kind of have something to do with my art posts, honestly they do. Because yesterday the first post, But is it Art?was linked to on io9. Which was also pretty cool.

But I found the comments over there really interesting, in that so many of them seemed to automatically assume that you must compromise in order to get published, that it was necessary. That if you want to be published you have to expect you’ll be told to change things.

That hasn’t been my experience at all, frankly. While UNHOLY GHOSTS isn’t everything I’d envisioned it being when I started writing it, that’s my failure; I wasn’t asked to tone anything down or change anything fundamental about the story, characters, or world. Not one thing. Not in any of the Downside books, in fact. Not in any of the Demons books, either. Hell, DEMON INSIDE has a ritual cannibalism scene involving the hero of the series. Nobody asked me to take that out or tone it down or change it. Nobody has asked me to change or tone down anything I’ve written, frankly, with the sole exception of–as I’ve mentioned before–the incestuous rape scene in DEMON’S TRIAD, and that was perfectly understandable and perfectly okay with Anna and I; we’d inadvertently made it a bit sexier than it should have been and so needed to tone it down. That wasn’t a compromise. We weren’t asked to remove the rape, which was female-on-male. We were just asked not to make it titillating, and like I said, we were happy to do so.

That is honestly the only time in my entire career that I can think of where I was asked to change something in one of my books, and that’s not really a change at all. I’ve never had to give up on anything truly important to me. I honestly don’t know anyone who has.

Yes, saying that does sort of negate the whole point of the first post. And I think it’s important to remember that DEMON’S TRIAD was an X-rated ebook, sold with a warning; that scene very well may not have flown in NY, especially NY genre romance. UNHOLY GHOSTS and the Downside books are urban fantasies, which also give me a bit more leeway. As I said on Tuesday, if you want to write a cannibal love story (in mine, it was ritualistic and involved non-humans, remember) you may have problems. There are a lot of difficult subjects that you may indeed need to wait to write, until you have a bigger name or more solid standing.

But I also believe it comes down to the writing. I’d never sold to NY when I signed with my agent for UNHOLY GHOSTS, and the series was my first NY sale. I had no standing in the industry (not that I think I do now; I’m still nobody, really). But my agent and several editors felt my writing was strong enough, my story, characters, and worldbuilding compelling enough, that they didn’t care about the slightly difficult subject.

Which brings us full circle. Getting published isn’t about compromising. getting published is about writing. It’s about characters and story. Focus on those, and on being true to them and to yourself, and on giving your work that emotional depth and making it as strong as you possibly can. That’s how you get published, not by giving in or giving up or whatever.

Tomorrow I’m going to post the CITY OF GHOSTS playlist, I think, and a weekend SNeak Peek. I’m also thinking of a contest of some kind, to name a character in the fourth Downside book? Trying to think of a fun way to have people enter; I’m thinking of doing a Twitter contest using the #cityofghosts hashtag HarperVoyager already came up with. Thoughts? Anybody interested?

Something *very* exciting happened on Saturday! I got up and popped on over to check my email–like I do–and had a message from a friend of mine in England, asking if I was aware that UNHOLY GHOSTS was in the Times. Uh…no. What times? The Times, as in the London Times? The real Times of London, not, like, the Sempford Peverell Times or the Clovery-Buttington Times or something.

No. It was the real Times, in London, the real national newspaper TIMES. They had a pullout section for summer reading, and UNHOLY GHOSTS was one of the six books their reviewer chose as their Summer Fantasy Picks!

So as you can imagine, I’m pretty excited about that.

Second, we have a couple of reviews for UNHOLY MAGIC, which, yes, will be released tomorrow*. From Abigail at ALL THINGS URBAN FANTASY:

Like any drug, the first taste gets your attention but its the second taste that gets you hooked. I though the first Downside Ghosts book, Unholy Ghosts, was an impressive debut, but UNHOLY MAGIC is even better. I am well and truly addicted to this dark, seductive urban fantasy series.

From Wicked Lil Pixie, FIVE stars:

Unholy Magic is book two in the Downside Ghosts series & without a doubt my favorite new series of 2010…I tried real hard to read Unholy Magic slowly, because the wait for City of Ghosts may be too much for me. I think I’m already going into withdrawals. Stacia Kane does not disappoint & crafts one of the most original new series of [the year].

*I’ve heard quite a few reports that the book is already on shelves, and have heard from quite a few readers who have already bought & finished the book. So it’s worth checking at your local bookstore today, if you don’t want to wait. As I’ve said in the past, I don’t care when you buy it as long as you do!

Also, yes, I will be excerpting the first three chapters of CITY OF GHOSTS, which will be out July 27 in the US (I believe the UK/AU release date is August 5[?]) here on the site, and will probably post those chapters next week, along with various excerpts here on the blog throughout the next few weeks.

And of course, since we have a release coming, we have an excerpt today. This is from Chapter Fifteen, as Chess investigates her latest Debunking case at the home of Roger Pyle, a television actor, and his wife Kym (I’ve truncated this excerpt a bit; the sequence is longer in the actual book):

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s 1:50 pm (yes, I know that isn’t morning. So what?). I’ve been ready to go back to bed since ten.

Lousy sleep–it’s too damn hot to sleep–and lousy dreams. Then, as I’m wandering the internet this morning I find an article about the upcoming Toy Story 3 movie, which reminded me of Toy Story 2, which I hate and can’t watch.

“But, Stace,” you say, “how can you possibly hate such a sweet little kid’s movie?”

I’ll tell you why. Because it’s awful and sad and tragic. Sure, it’s fun for the first hour or so. Look at the toys, aren’t they funny, Barbie is an idiot slut, la la la. Then we meet Joan Cusack’s character, and then we hear her tale, and they sing that song about how life was beautiful when that fickle girl loved her, and we see that fickle girl abandon her by the side of the road and go off with some boy, because all women will eventually abandon everything for a man, and by that time I’m sobbing and on the beginning of a depressive shame spiral that will only end in a lot of vodka.

I can’t possibly be the only one who feels like this, can I? Who sees that and starts remembering all of my toys, the stuffed animals and horse statues and Weeble-Wobbles and stuff, now lying broken and abandoned in a ditch somewhere, alone and scared, at the mercy of the elements, sobbing and spending their entire eternal toy lives wondering what they did that was so wrong, and why I forsook them so coldly? And wishing desperately I would just appear and hold them one more time?

Seriously. I have enough shit on my conscience. I don’t need that, too.

After reading that article I literally cried for ten minutes. Why don’t you just play a recording of Helen Reddy’s “Candle on the Water,” to complete the childhood misery deluge? (See, I have this theory about “Candle on the Water.” I believe that while we as children thought it was a sweet song, and maybe kids today still do, you cannot play that song to any adult over the age of, oh, thirty, and expect them not to dissolve into tears. Seriously. We should look into this as a weapon. Whoever owns the Helen Reddy records owns the world.)

Did I mention the hideous, oppressive heat, and how it makes me half-convinced that the earth is just about to burst into flames? And saps every bit of energy out of me, and makes me slow-witted and sad? I hate the damn sun. I hate the damn heat. It makes me ill (literally; I’ve always been really sensitive to heat).

And then, something was crawling–well, I say crawling, but what it was in fact doing was racing–up my arm, and across my lapdesk. I–acting purely on my killer animal instincts–killed the thing with a spiral notebook. And guess what? It was a spider. It’s bad luck to kill a spider. Like I need more of that these days, right?

Sigh. So this day is not shaping up to be a great day, but let’s hope it improves. And it actually has a bit, because I popped over to Twitter to drown my sorrows and found a new review of UNHOLY GHOSTS, which, coupled with the one I got in my email this morning, makes me feel much cheerier.

From All Things Urban Fantasy, 4 out of 5 bats:

Any series that is described as “a cross between Ghostbusters and Escape From New York” is going to get my attention, big time. Of course that also means said series is going to have a lot to live up to. And in one of the wonderfully rare cases, UNHOLY GHOSTS does exactly that. It’s cool and twisted, just the way I like my urban fantasy.

From Book Chick City:

I’m so excited about this book – I LOVED it! I haven’t read an Urban Fantasy this good in quite a while…The writing is perfectly paced, I didn’t get bored once and everything slots together at the right time. The plot is just brilliant and had me engrossed until the very last page – I didn’t want to put this book down!

So let’s hope my slightly cheerier feeling lasts.

How about you? Looking forward to a good weekend, or a dull one? Does the heat make you feel oppressed and trapped beneath the weight of all the world’s misery too? Do you like Toy Story 2, and does “Candle on the Water” make you cry?

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!

Lots of links and info today, so let’s get to the important stuff first.

UNHOLY MAGIC’s first three chapters are now up in PDF form, ready for you to download (and the first chapter has been added to the book’s page here on the site). You can visit the book’s page for that or click here to download the chapters: UNHOLY MAGIC excerpt

Tomorrow, June 3, I’ll be doing an interview and guest chat at All Things Urban Fantasy, and Del Rey is kicking in a copy of UNHOLY GHOSTS as a giveaway. I may add a little something to that myself, too. So be sure to come by and say hello!

Also, not too long ago I met this total freak* named Brigwyn on Twitter, who insisted** that I let him interview me for his “Brigwyn’s Corner” podcast show. I agreed (mostly because I feared for my life!***) and the result is now available to listen to here at Brigwyn’s Corner. (Note: the contest is now over.)

There’s another interview with me up at Falcata Times, which is a UK fantasy blog/magazine. Because we know you just can’t get enough me.

* really funny, awesome guy
** asked politely
*** because he’s totally cool, and we had so much fun chatting that we stayed on the phone for three more hours after the interview was done

Also, this has nothing to do with me, but you should go look at it anyway (oh, that sounded wrong, didn’t it? Well, I don’t care if you look at the me-related stuff, but you should look at this, because it’s good). I think most of us here know Michele Lee, who is also a writer and reviewer, and has been hanging out here since the beginning. Michele is a great person, and she’s written a great blog post on What They Don’t Tell You About Writing that is about the best summary of it I’ve ever seen. So I really recommend you take a look at it, and leave a comment and all of that stuff.

And speaking of writers and reviewers and all that, time to play some review roundup!
Read the rest of this entry »

First, yesterday was the official release day for UNHOLY GHOSTS in Poland!

Witamy polskich czytelników! I z pewno?ci? nadziej?, ?e jeste? korzystaj?cych NIESWIETE DUCHY! Przykro mi, ale nie w j?zyku polskim, ale robi? mój najlepszy z t?umaczy online.

Nie wiem od daty dopuszczenia do NIESWIETE MAGIA (My?l?, ?e), ale mam nadziej?, wynika, USA / Wielka Brytania dat, które b?d? na pocz?tku lipca.

Jestem zachwycony które zostan? opublikowane w Polska!

O to strona ksi??ki na stronie Wydawnictwa Amber je?li chcesz je zobaczy?.

And I certainly hope that looks okay and I don’t get dinged by WordPress for all of the Polish letters.

Of course, I HAD a blog topic, and it was a good one, too, but I can’t for the life of me remember now what it was. I hate it when that happens. Oh! POV, that was it.

On Tuesday I went to a couple of bookstores in the area; three, actually. And I got to chatting at my local B&N with a bookseller I hadn’t met before about urban fantasy in general and POV in particular, because he shares my preference for third person POV, especially a tight, deep third. (Because most men love tight, deep things, you know. Ba-dum-bum. Oh, the hilarity never stops here!)

Anyway. We both felt the same way about first-person, which is that it’s distancing. And I know that sort of goes against the popular perception of it; I think most first fans–at least the ones I’ve spoken to–feel that it puts them closer to the action.

For me, reading a book written in first person doesn’t feel like I’m experiencing it. It feels like I’m sitting in a restaurant or something, listening to someone tell me a story that happened to them. Do you know what I mean? I feel a step further removed from the action, like I’m somewhere safe and I’m just being told a story.

Yesterday I saw a reader comment somewhere–can’t remember where–that they have a hard time truly feeling suspense with a first POV book, because obviously the narrator survived. I don’t necessarily disagree with this, but I don’t necessarily agree either; yes, we know they’re telling us the story, but for all we know they’re dead and telling us from the afterlife, right?

And of course it depends on the story and character and writer. I generally don’t like books written in present tense at all, and have sadly put down a few books I really, really wanted to read and love because I just couldn’t get past the present tense. But then there are books like Angela Huth’s WIVES OF THE FISHERMEN, which I absolutely adore, and which I honestly didn’t even realize was written in present tense until I was over halfway through it. Yes, it’s possible that this is in part due to the fact that the book contains a lot of flashback/memory scenes, which are in past tense, but it’s also because it’s just such a great book and so perfectly written.

Anyway. With a tight third I feel like I’m actually in the story, in the character’s head. I’m not being told a story, I’m seeing it. That’s why I like to read third best, and why I like to write third best. How about you?

And we have more reviews, of course!

The Book Lovers gives it 4.5 bookies:

The pace of the book was wonderful and the story gripped me ASAP and didn’t let me go till the last word. I loved how Ms. Kane shows us that looks are deceiving and we should never judge a person just with taking one glance at him or her. A highly recommended read not only for Urban Fantasy lovers, but for anyone who likes a good story.

There is also an interview & giveaway chat with me at Book Lovers, so go check that out as well if you’re so inclined.

Jessica at A GREAT Read says:

Finished Stacia Kane’s Unholy Ghosts today, her debut in her new series and it was seriously a wild ride! It was dark, gritty, edgy and enthralling from the first chapter!

This weekend I plan to get the PDF of the first three chapter of UNHOLY MAGIC up on the site; I’m doing some general site updates as well (or rather, the fabulous Frauke at Croco Designs is, and those should be completed soon; UNHOLY MAGIC will finally get its own page, with the back cover copy and everything, I’ll finally get my sidebar links updated (there are several things I was able to figure out how to do on my own here but the sidebar links seem to be in a separate file or something, I don’t know, but I need help, lol), we’re going to add some more fun stuff to, well, the Fun Stuff page, and maybe a few other things here and there.

Which is another question. What sorts of things would you guys like to see? The recipe downloads are pretty popular (now that they’re working, lol, because apparently they weren’t for a while), and I plan to add a few more, but of course there’s no cooking in the Downside books the way there is in the Demons books.

So what do you think is fun extra content? Or do you really not care?

Have a great weekend everyone; it’s a long weekend, isn’t it?

I may post an UNHOLY MAGIC excerpt here on the blog later…

I completely forgot yesterday to mention the soundtracks, but we’ll get to that in a second. First I have two new reviews to share!

K.M. Ruiz over at Ink and Coffee says (among many other things):

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.

Then we have Wendy at The Book Lush, who gives the book 5 Lushes!:

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.)

Anyway. You can check out, and purchase, the UNHOLY GHOSTS soundtrack here, and for those who’re wondering, this is the track listing:

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 that’s it for tonight, I think!