Imperial Demons is in the wild!

Today's the day, folks! IMPERIAL DEMONS is unleashed! And I am SUPER EXCITED. I feel like DARK DAYS may as well have been released a lifetime ago, and I've been raring to get Lola and Tristesse's next adventure out in the world. And now, here we are!

There is nothing I don't love about this book. World-building Gehenna was so much fun. Writing a truly inhuman villain was a great challenge. Forcing Lola and Tristesse to grow in ways I absolutely hadn't planned way back in BLOOD WITCH was fantastic! I know I've said it before, but I never intended BLOOD WITCH to be anything more than a one-off novella. To now be at book four in the series, with books five, six, and maybe seven in the pipeline makes me incredibly proud and excited.

Parts of IMPERIAL DEMONS were wrenching to write, but I think I've given you an awesome story, and I have plenty of fun, madness, and magic coming up for Lola and Tris still. We just have to go through some hard times to get there...

Magic can make you mad. Love can make you dangerous.

Tristesse is gone, taken between worlds to be the bride of a sadistic demon prince. And Lola will do anything to get her back. Crossing into Gehenna is only the start. Hunted by monsters and accompanied by allies she can’t trust, Lola must endure the horrors of the demon world, and embrace the darkness of demon magic. If it doesn’t consume her, it might just save both her and Tristesse.

But in Gehenna nothing is guaranteed. Nothing except pain.

Pick up your copy (for a discount!) right now at Evernight. Or grab it from Amazon US, Amazon UK, and probably wherever else you get your ebooks!

And you can read on right now for a glimpse at the first chapter!

Snickt!

Imperial Demons cover reveal!

GUYS. IMPERIAL DEMONS has a cover and it's SPECTACULAR.

I have been swooning over this baby for days now, and I'm thrilled to share it! Once again, Evernight and Jay Aheer have done me proud. I just don't have words for how perfect this is!

Magic can make you mad. Love can make you dangerous.

Tristesse is gone, taken between worlds to be the bride of a sadistic demon prince. And Lola will do anything to get her back. Crossing into Gehenna is only the start. Hunted by monsters and accompanied by allies she can’t trust, Lola must endure the horrors of the demon world, and embrace the darkness of demon magic. If it doesn’t consume her, it might just save both her and Tristesse.

But in Gehenna nothing is guaranteed. Nothing except pain.

I'm still waiting on the release date, but all the edits are wrapped up so stay tuned!

And look how good they all look together too:

I'm kinda mind-blown that this series is at book four already. When I started BLOOD WITCH back in the day, it was meant to be a quick, short, one-shot novella. Now it's looking likely to be a seven-book series in total, and with every book I just fall more and more in love with the world and characters. I really cannot wait to share IMPERIAL DEMONS with you all <3

Flashback Friday - Blood Witch

Happy Friday, folks! With LICH QUEEN out in the wild, I thought I'd do something different for this week's flashback and take a look at one of my own books. And why not make it the book that started the Blood Canticles series, BLOOD WITCH? Why not indeed.

The early draft of BLOOD WITCH was a little different from the finished product, but the basics were the same - it started with a witch being questioned about a murder she didn't commit by two police officers who were sure she was guilty. But Lola was called Lilah, and Rowan was called Rosa, and neither of those police officers were Dawn.

Lilah became Lola because at the time I was seeing an absolute glut of urban fantasy and paranormal romance books where the heroines were called Lily or something similar, and I wanted to avoid having another Lily/Lilah/Lillian. Rosa became Rowan because, after I changed Lola's name, I didn't want two main characters whose names ended in that "ah" sound.

As for Dawn Hardy, she was originally destined to star in a book I never wrote, in a world where vampires had tried living as legal citizens and been forced back into the shadows when they just couldn't stop massacring people. Dawn was going to be a cop-turned-vampire hunter working for the government. I never got past the first few hundred words, and now I'm glad I didn't!

Lola Guntram is used to being an outcast. She's the only blood witch in Fort Rosser, mistrusted by other witches and happier working solo. But when her dark practices make her the prime suspect in a brutal murder investigation, she's forced to turn to others for help. Not that she has many allies—her ex-girlfriend thinks Lola is the killer, and the local coven leader thinks Lola will corrupt them all if she gets too close.

Help comes in an expected—and alluring—form. Tristesse is a demon on the run, beautiful, enigmatic, and suspiciously keen to assist Lola while she chases down the real killer. How can Lola refuse? With the police breathing down her neck, accusations flying, and inhuman monsters on the streets, Lola needs all the help she can get. The killer is angry, desperate, and determined. But so is Lola Guntram. And she doesn't care how dark or bloody the magic has to get—she's going to stop them.

Available now from Evernight/Amazon US/Amazon UK

Read on for an excerpt!

LICH QUEEN IS LIVE!

Today's the day, Blood Canticles fans! LICH QUEEN is out! Dawn Hardy's first solo adventure (barring interference from Imani, Caleb, Rowan, and a couple of new friends) is unleashed and I couldn't be more excited.

This book means a lot to me. Not just because I love this series, but because Dawn is a character I'm proud of. If you've followed her since BLOOD WITCH, you know she's had a hell of a ride, from discovering magic, demons, and vampires are real, through experiencing profound loss and grief, to having her whole world turned inside out. Now, in LICH QUEEN, she's at her lowest ebb, depressed and struggling to function.

But she fights. And sometimes she needs some help fighting. I think a lot of us have been there, and while we don't have to deal with demons and ghosts along the way, we still have our battles. Hopefully you're going to love reading Dawn's story and seeing how she handles her battles.

You can pick your copy up right this very second from Evernight (where it's reduced for launch!), Amazon US, Amazon UK, and probably wherever else you buy your ebooks.

And you can read the first chapter right this very second on the blog! Enjoy!

Snip!

Building a Book - The Music

As some of you may know, I keep a Spotify playlist for most of my series/projects, and Blood Canticles is no exception. (You can find it here if you're curious). It's something I've been adding to ever since I wrote BLOOD WITCH and there are songs for every character, every mood, every scene and some future scenes. Back in May I shared five AFI songs for Lola and Tristesse. Today I'm sharing five songs for Imperial Demons. Enjoy!





1. If I Burn - Emilie Autumn

This one's for Tristesse, and also the opening of the book.



2. Torch Song - AFI

More AFI, yes. Sorry/not sorry.



3. To Hell With You - Sleigh Bells

This was the first song I officially pegged for Imperial Demons, so I kind of think of it as the theme song.



4. Demons - Chelsea Wolfe

I just love her stuff. So dark and atmospheric.



5. Heavy Stone - Kyla La Grange

I adore Kyla La Grange, and this song is especially poignant to me. If Imperial Demons was a film, this song would play over the end credits.

June Accountability

You may remember that back at the start of May, I thought finishing Imperial Demons by the end of May was a pretty reasonable goal. Well, It's now the 5th of June and the book still isn't finished, so I'm starting to think I should just shut up. I had a really productive writing month last month, allowing for a few periods of down-time due to ye olde shoulder/arm/wrist issues, and Imperial Demons is sitting pretty at nearly 70k. I thought it would end up around 80k, but there is just no way I'll have everything wrapped up in just another 10k, so now I'm thinking 90k-100k seems more likely.

This is turning into a big book by my standards. I haven't written anything this long since my dad passed away in 2012. In 2013 I really lost my passion for writing while I was grieving, and it seemed for a while like the spark and the drive to write anything longer than a short story was never coming back to me. I don't know why I placed so much value on writing "big books," but it made me sad to think I'd lost some vital component in my writer's toolkit. Clearly I worried too much. Thanks, anxiety!

I guess it's a natural part of the series' progression - BLOOD WITCH was around 45k, DARK DAYS was around 63k. LICH QUEEN dropped to 58k, and Imperial Demons could easily end up being double the length of any of them at this rate. Expect to see Book 5 clock in at a million words...

Anyway, none of that is particularly interesting, really. I just like tracking that kind of thing. The point is, Imperial Demons is still not done, but it should be done in June (allowing for edits for ON A DARK TIDE and LICH QUEEN). Huzzahs! I am in the final act and it's time to start bringing all the foreshadowing and plot threads together for the big climax. Wish me luck!

So that's June's to-do list, really: Finish The Damn Book. I feel pretty inspired to do so, what with being so close to the end, and my tarot card draw for the month is encouraging too:

That's the Magician from the Quantum tarot deck. He indicates power, skill, and concentration, among other things. The Quantum deck tells us that whenever we create something out of nothing, we are inhabiting the Magician archetype. I can't think of a better card to represent where I am right now, focusing on finishing this goddamn book and turning all the ideas that have been tucked away in my head for over a year into actual words.

In the spirit of creating something from nothing, I spent most of yesterday afternoon making perfumes, something I never feel like I have time for anymore.

It felt so good to just chill out and make things smell pretty, and I really need to carve more time out of my schedule for experimenting. So we'll add that to the June to-do list as well. Let's see how it all turned out when I do this again in July...

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

- Plato, The Republic

So, later than expected (because that seems to be my theme this year), Thrown to the Wolves is finished, polished, and submitted. I like this little werewolfy romance a lot, and I hope to have good news about it soon.

That brings us into October, and Blood Canticles 3. It was always my plan to start on this in the autumn, so even though I'd hoped to get going in September, I'm okay with being a bit behind schedule. This book will easily take the rest of the year to write, unless I get lucky, and my perhaps foolish aim is to write a companion novella alongside it.

See, Blood Canticles 3, tentatively titled Through Fire, will take Lola and Tristesse away from their ragtag group for the bulk of the book, but events in Fort Rosser will continue apace, because that's how the world works. The nasty stuff that happened in DARK DAYS will have knock-on effects for Dawn, Imani, and Rowan that need to be addressed while Lola and Tris are...away. At first I thought about writing Through Fire with alternating viewpoints, with Lola, Tris, and Dawn all being focal characters.

Then I realised I'd probably end up with either a hot mess or a 100k epic working that way, and decided it might be easier to write one novel and one novella. I could be wrong about this route, but it feels like the right path, so we'll see. In any case, my schedule for the rest of the year is now as follows:

Write Through Fire
Write companion novella (Pale Queen)
Try not to make a mess

I am very excited about both these stories. If everything goes to plan, Lola's world is going to explode (metaphorically) and I can show you all kinds of new, horrible, amazing things. I've spent a lot of this year doing research and reading heavily to inform the world of Through Fire, and Pale Queen will hopefully do its own job in building on the magic and lore of BLOOD WITCH and DARK DAYS. I'll try to share snippets if they're not too spoilery. If you want a glimpse at the Blood Canticles world in the meantime, there's my Pinterest board here, and an ever-growing Spotify playlist at the bottom of this page. Enjoy!

The Great (Late) Dark Days Giveaway!

I originally planned to run this giveaway when DARK DAYS came out. Well, that was over a month ago now, so as you can see...I failed. Luckily this is the kind of failure that doesn't really matter, since DARK DAYS is still out, and I can still run the giveaway. So let's do it!

What am I giving away, you ask?

One absolutely beautiful, handmade algiz rune pendant, carved in hornbeam, from the equally beautiful Urd Handicrafts. If you've read DARK DAYS, you know this rune plays a role in the story.

One 5ml bottle of Lola-inspired perfume from my perfume shop, Common Brimstone. (Actually this isn't available in the shop yet, so it's extra specially special!). Lola's scent is Earl Grey tea, vanilla, dragon's blood, warm spices, peach, apricot and clementine.

One 5ml bottle of Tristesse-inspired perfume, Demon Duchess (also a yet-to-be released exclusive!). Tristesse's scent is enticing artemisia, Russian rose, plum, cranberry, strawberry and clove.

And rounding things up, your choice of either BLOOD WITCH or DARK DAYS in ebook.

That's what's on offer, so why not enter yourself? Go on!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

DARK DAYS Cover Reveal!

I'll be honest, it hasn't been the best week. Last Thursday, Kyle and I had to make the heartbreaking decision to have our beloved Ferguson put to sleep. In the very early hours of the morning, he went into heart failure, and his liver was hugely enlarged. We decided to let him go peacefully while we still could. It was a horribly sad decision, not made any easier by knowing it was the right one. And, purely coincidentally, I've been ill ever since, so there's that. Anyway. Goodbye, my boy. You were a hell of cat. You had friends all over the world, and you were my fearless feline companion through many a domestic misadventure. There will never be another you, and I feel grateful to have been your favourite human.

As much as I would love the world to stop while I grieve, that's not how life works. So I have to keep on trucking, I guess. It's not all bad news. Amber Morgan had a new book out this week. That's good. Over the Christmas break I completed the edits on DARK DAYS and got a final release date (February 2nd). That's good. Yesterday I saw the mock-up of the cover. That was great. And today I got the final art files. That's awesome. Wanna see? Of course you do! Clickety-click.

Welcome to 2016! It's the Hello Hop!

We’re ringing in the New Year with lots of giveaways! And by sharing some fun and wacky facts about ourselves. There’s a new giveaway at each stop so be sure to visit them all!

So the New Year is upon us, and hopefully it's going to bring loads of new, awesome things into our lives...like new people, right? And there's no better way to break the ice when meeting new people than to share weird facts about yourself, so let's get right to it. I'm going to share five quirky facts about me, and I'm going to ask you to share some of your own to enter my giveaway. So without further ado...

1. I'm really scared of robots. Like, genuinely scared. I'm genuinely worried that Skynet is a future possibility (and apparently I'm right to worry). This all stems back to seeing Superman III at an impressionable age, and being horrified by Vera being transformed into a cyborg at the end. Ever since then, I've harboured a deep distrust of anything robotic, cyborg-ish, or even vaguely mechanical.

2. I collect tarot cards. I know how to read 'em too, although these days I very rarely do readings. I'm happy just to pull a deck out every now and then and admire the gorgeous artwork. My very first deck was the Tarot of the Moon Garden. I bought it from an indie bookstore in Liverpool while I was at university and taught myself to read the cards in my spare time. Since then I've collected all kinds of decks, from the Quantum tarot to the Santa Fe tarot.

3. I have five tattoos. I have a kanji symbol for "mind, body, and spirit" at the small of my back, which I got on my 18th birthday. A second kanji for "witch" at the top of my spine, which I got for my 21st birthday. A black and red tribal design at the small of my back, which I got on my last day of university. I have an elder sign beneath the witch kanji, which my fiance paid for as an anniversary present. And finally, I have the words "hope begins in the dark" on my left inner forearm, which I got last February as a Valetine's gift from my fiance. I'm trying to decide where to have number six...

4. I'm obsessed with perfume. Actually, this won't be news to people who know me, but if you're new here...I am obsessed. I have boxes upon boxes of perfumes. I make my own as well as buying from beautiful indie shops, so I also have boxes upon boxes of essential and fragrance oils. I never, ever wear the same perfume two days in a row.

5. I love true crime stories. I don't know if this is particularly weird, but I guess it's probably something not many people know. I'm addicted to the podcast Sword and Scale, and I especially love historical crime stories, the weirder the better!

Now, the giveaway! I'm giving away a copy of my urban fantasy, BLOOD WITCH, book one of the Blood Canticles series (it's definitely got some weird crime going on). 

To be in with a chance of winning, just tell me something not many people know about you! And don't forget to visit the other blogs on the hop. Happy hopping!

 

Blood Canticles News, Everyone!

It's official! I just signed the contract for the sequel to BLOOD WITCH, DARK DAYS. Huzzahs! The projected release date is February 2016, and this is the (unedited) blurb:

Vampires on the loose. Monsters on the streets. And a demon in her bed...

Lola Guntram's life is not getting easier. She's no longer wanted for murder, but there's still danger everywhere she turns. Isaiah's sinister influence still lingers in Fort Rosser, and her friends are breaking under the pressure.

To make matters worse, a new threat stalks Tristesse, and the demon duchess might not win this war. As more blood is spilled and evil draws ever closer, Lola has to ask herself what she's prepared to do – and what she's prepared to sacrifice – to keep her loved ones safe.

It probably goes without saying that I'm REALLY EXCITED! I loved writing Lola's second book and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that, come next year, you're all going to love reading it.

Monday Check-In

So! Another Monday is upon us. Ugh. How was everyone's weekend? My Saturday consisted mostly of taking Fergus to the vet for his annual boosters. He bravely hid under the kitchen table when I tried to get him in the carrier, and had to be fished out by my mum, who was willing to endure his wrath since he hates her anyway. As usual, once he was at the vet's, he quite enjoyed himself. We have to go back this weekend with a urine sample, as he's been drinking more than usual lately, and that can be a sign of renal problems in a cat his age. So wish us both luck with that!

Sunday was a good writing day - almost 3k on Dark Days, which means the end is absolutely in sight. Ideally I'll wrap it up today and then leave it aside for a week before doing some editing. In reality, I'm in the middle of my Christmas rush at Common Brimstone, and if I'm going to stay on top of my incoming orders, I'm going to spend most of my evenings making perfume rather than writing. So...we'll see.

In other news, I have a release date for COLD NIGHT MOON! November 16th - save the date for my new Urban Wolf short story. I've seen the mock cover and it's beautiful <3 Really can't wait to show that off to you all!

And in other other news, the annual Evernight Readers' Choice Awards are open for nominations! Here's the scoop:

***NOMINATIONS ARE OPEN***

Nominate your favorite Evernight books of 2015 during our READERS' CHOICE AWARDS!

Leave your name and email address at the end of the nomination form for the chance to win a $25 Evernight GC!

VOTE HERE!

Reader Nominations: Monday, Nov. 9th - 18th

Voting: Nov. 21st - 30th

Winners announced first week of December

Evernight books published between Nov 1, 2014 - Oct. 31 2015 are eligible.

My eligible books, should you wish to vote are, BLOOD WITCH and THE SEA WIFE. I also have some Amber Morgan titles that are eligible, and you can see their details here. I think that's everything for today - back on Wednesday (or sooner with that beautiful new cover, hopefully!).

Anti-Nano Begins Anew!

Good luck to everyone who started NaNoWriMo yesterday! May your words come swiftly and your...blockages...be few? Your writing blockages. All blockages.

I am not doing NaNo, because I know I can't commit to the minimum daily word count due to my shoulder/arm problems/perfume business/day job/inherent laziness/old episodes of Raw is War/delete as appropriate. But I love the spirit of NaNo, so I always aim to commit to something writing-wise in November, and thus, Anti-Nano was born.

The principles of Anti-Nano are simple: pick your goal and hop to it. Whether it's to write a certain amount each day, finish that story you've been avoiding for months, or brainstorm ideas for your epic, game-changing ten book series, you set the goals and pace yourself accordingly. My usual Anti-Nano goal is just "write something every day," but I'm adjusting that slightly this year and giving myself two goals.

1. Finish the first draft of Dark Days. I'm so close! The end is definitely in sight, and I feel like I can by done by mid-November if I stick to my current pace.

2. Once Dark Days is wrapped up and has been sent to my brave volunteer beta reader, I'm going to work on my next Amber Morgan title, Wolf's Hunt. It's not impossible that I could finish that before the end of November, but I'm not aiming for that particularly. I just want to crack on as much as I can before the end of this year.

My caveat is that I have two short stories scheduled for release in the next couple of months, so I'm awaiting edits which, obviously, take precedence. So my goals may jump around a bit depending on when the edits arrive and how intense they are.

I post check-ins on Mondays and Fridays, and snippets on Wednesdays (if I can find non-spoilery snippets for Dark Days this late in the game). Hopefully this will be a productive, creative month for everyone!