Category Archives: Darkness Divides update

Audiobook release and paperbacks

For those of you who have been waiting for Darkness Divides and Darkness Clashes to be out in paperback, they are both available now.  Amazon gave me the kick in the pants I needed to get it done by offering to help out.  I think they got tired of waiting for me to do it myself (in my defense, I’ve been busy).  Big thanks to the Createspace team for their design work.  Here’s the links for those who’d like to pick them up:

Darkness Divideshttp://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Divides-Sensor-Volume-3/dp/1502932008/

Darkness Clasheshttp://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Clashes-Sensor-Volume-4/dp/1502932180/

You can also find them on Barnes & Noble as well as some other online retailers.

The big release day for the Darkness Haunts audiobook is this Tuesday (Nov 25th).  Pre-order for the digital download is now available, but if you’d like to hear a sample of it first click here.   Prices for it vary according to how you purchase so for your convenience I’m going to tell you the cheapest ways to get it as of right now.  Keep in mind the cost could go up or down at the retailer’s discretion.

1) For those who shop at Amazon and already own the kindle version of Darkness Haunts, you can get the audio version on Amazon here for $3.49.  I’m not sure of the price outside the U.S. but feel free to comment and let me know what you’re seeing if you’re in the UK, Germany, Australia, etc and own the Kindle version.

2) If you’re a member of Audible and have downloads left you could get it for free or if you’re new to the site you could sign up for trial membership and get it for free.  Here’s the link- http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Darkness-Haunts-Audiobook/B00PKJ2MJ8/

3) For those who do not have Audible membership (or can’t/won’t get it), and also do not own the Kindle version of Darkness Haunts you have a few options.  Buy at full price from Amazon or Audible for $27.99, buy it on iTunes for $23.95, or you can buy it on my publisher website (Tantor) for $14.39 at this link- https://tantor.com/darkness-haunts-susan-illene.html

As I mentioned in a previous post, you can also order the CD versions of the audio book.  Here’s the links to those:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Tantor*

Books-A-Million

Waterstones (for the UK folks)

*Currently, Tantor offers CDs at the lowest cost.  You can get the regular audio CD that works in all CD players/computers for $14.99 or you can get the MP3 CD for $9.99 that works in computers and some CD players.

I hope those of you who pick it up enjoy the audio version of Darkness Haunts.  You can expect Darkness Taunts to be out on December 16th.  The CD version for it and the other books in the series are already up for pre-order, but the digital download versions don’t become available until closer to their release dates.  Feel free to ask any questions if you have any!

For a better visual of the Airborne scene in Darkness Divides

I wanted to wait until most people had a chance to read Darkness Divides before posting this.  It’s a video of the same plane (Casa-212) and type of parachute Melena used in the book.  The main difference being this takes place at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina during the daytime (plus the troops are using proper military procedures instead of Mel’s improvising).  You can see how Melena would have strapped her pack to the front of her similar to the way they do.  These troops are probably carrying upwards of 100 pounds on them, which makes it rather awkward to walk.

I’ve actually jumped on the same drop zone this video shows about a dozen times, often using that plane, so I did draw heavily from those experiences for the novel.  Hopefully this gives you a better idea for what it would feel like to do it.

 

Direct link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAwIzpHfOaY

Darkness Divides playlist and other news

 

First off, those of you who were with me on Facebook last night know that I picked a title for the novella I’m releasing at the end of this month (May).  After much debate and help with readers we decided on “Playing with Darkness”.  I’ve already got the cover art done and will reveal it as soon as the typography is on there.  It’s really looking amazing, especially with Sable joining Melena for this one.

I also want to thank all the fans for their support.  In the first thirty days since Darkness Divides has released it has sold over 3600 copies between all retailers and is still going strong.  This was much more than I expected for this early on!  It’s also reached as high as #3 on the New Release Best Seller list for Dark Fantasy and #6 on the regular list.  With authors like Charlaine Harris topping it, I’m happy to get that far.  I couldn’t have done it without readers like you all spreading the word about the series 🙂

Now, we’ll get on with the playlist that inspired my writing Darkness Divides and what I’m also using for the follow-up novella.  If you’ve got some suggestions for me to use with Darkness Clashes feel free to let me know in the comments.  All songs below are linked to their albums on iTunes in case you’d like to check them out further.

 

1) “Roar” by Katy Perry

 

2) “Brave” by Sara Bareilles

*Thanks to the Microsoft tablet commercials for getting this one stuck in my head (my husband likes to play the television in deafening volumes from the other room while I’m writing in what I suspect is an attempt to drive me crazy).  The lyrics to this song are rather inspiring, though.

 

3) “Bent” by Matchbox Twenty

*Especially influenced the first few chapters of the novel.

 

4) “Disease” by Matchbox Twenty

 

5) “Unwell” by Matchbox Twenty

 

6) “Dark Horse” by Katy Perry

*Especially influenced the fae city portion of the novel.

 

7) “This Is My Now” by Jordin Sparks

 

8) “Human” by Christina Perri

*Especially influenced the early part of the novel.

 

9) “Don’t Cry” by Guns N’ Roses

 

10) “Intuition” by Jewel

*This song just helped get me in a good mood to write 🙂

 

11) “You Were Meant For Me” by Jewel

 

12) “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC

*Influenced the last half of the book

 

13) “Hells Bells” by AC/DC

*Influenced the last half of the book

 

13) “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC

*Influenced the last half of the book and always makes me think of Lucas and Mel together

 

14) “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC

*Influenced the last half of the book

 

15) “Carry On Wayward Son” by Kansas

*Influenced the last half of the book

 

16) “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith

 

17) “Cryin’” by Aerosmith

 

18) “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” by Guns N’ Roses

 

That’s it for now.  Expect another post soon with more information about the upcoming novella, Playing with Darkness, book 3.5!

Series Updates…

First off, thanks to everyone who has bought/read/reviewed Darkness Divides so far.  Release day was a busy one, but really awesome.  I truly appreciate it!

Next, those of you who follow me on Facebook or have visited the book page on this site have probably noticed I’ll be releasing a short story at the end of May.  I’m going to try to avoid spoilers here for anyone who hasn’t read Darkness Divides yet, but if you’ve finished the book you’ll get what I mean despite my vagueness.

This story will cover Melena returning the device she was still holding onto at the end of book 3.  Naturally, she’ll have her new “tag along” with her (as we like to refer to this person on Facebook to avoid spoilers) and that will cause some problems.  Sable, the shape-shifter kitty, will also be joining Melena for different reasons.

I’ve said this is going to be a short story, but as I began plotting it out recently a few more characters insisted on taking part so it may be closer to the length of my story in the New Year’s anthology.  That one was a little over 10k words.  It’s not going to be as action-packed as the books, but you can expect a decent bit of humor and some adventure.

What is the title?  I have no idea at this point, but I’m open to suggestions.

At this stage my plan is to provide free PDF copies of the story to anyone who emails me.  I may also add it to Goodreads and make it available for download there.  If by some crazy set of circumstances my muse makes me write something that goes beyond 15k words I may also put it up on the retailer sites for 99 cents.  The main reason I’d charge even that much is because Amazon won’t let me set it at free and because if I publish it with the retailers I’m going to have to have a cover designed.  That would at least help me recoup my costs with it.  Since I’d promised to provide it for free, though, I will still offer it at no charge if you contact me (the same as the New Year’s story).  You’ll be able to grab it whichever way you prefer and I’ll be happy so long as you enjoy it 🙂

For Goodreads users, I have added Darkness Clashes (book 4) onto the site.  No cover or blurb yet, but I’ll release those sometime in late July.  If you’d like to add it to your shelf this is the link:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21963515-darkness-clashes

Also, I’ve started a paperback giveaway for the first novel in the series, Darkness Haunts.  Members of Goodreads can go there to enter.

 

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Darkness Haunts by Susan Illene

Darkness Haunts

by Susan Illene

Giveaway ends May 07, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win


I will have at least one other giveaway for series paperbacks here on my blog, and several on Facebook during the month of May.  If you’re interested, be sure to be on the lookout!

If anyone has any other questions, feel free to ask them below.

 

Darkness Divides is now Available!

Darkness Divides coverThanks to everyone for their patience.  I’m excited to let you all know Darkness Divides is now available on Amazon and as soon as it is available with other retailers I’ll post the links for them here as well.  For those wondering, this novel came to almost 108k words, which is the longest one I’ve released yet (see the book tab above for word count on the others).  This is honestly my favorite novel so far, but I’m biased so I’ll leave it up to you all to decide what you think!

As a release day bonus, the first twenty people who comment on this post will be eligible to get a set of series bookmarks (regardless of where you’re from).  Be sure to put a valid email address in the comment field so I can contact you.  Two random people from among the twenty will also get a free signed paperback copy of Darkness Haunts (the first book in the series).

*Update- The full number of comments has been reached.  I’ll be contacting everyone soon to get your addresses to send the bookmarks and I’ll announce on a separate post who won the paperback books.

 

Purchase Links

Nook

iTunes

Kobo

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon Germany

Amazon Australia

Amazon Canada

Amazon France