Tag Archives: Urban Fantasy

Kerbasi spin-off series

I’m going to get down to the nitty gritty of my thoughts over the years on this topic for those who have been hoping Kerbasi would get a full novel or series. Of course, he did get a holiday novella from his perspective (Sensor Series book 4.5) and a short story included at the end of Darkness Wanes (book 6), but those were shorter reads. Not to mention, a lot has happened to him since those were written, especially at the end of the Dark Destiny Series. I won’t spoil that twist for anyone who isn’t caught up, but it was a game changer for Kerbasi.

Anyway, since I finished the last spin-off with Cori and Bartol, I’ve been pondering how to handle the next chapter in that universe. There were a lot of ways to go with it. I could do a PNR single-novel spinoff, but I honestly think only the hardcore fans of the Sensor Series would pick that up, and I’d be lucky if I made my money back on the publishing expenses.

Next, I considered Kerbasi being the main lead for 2-3 books with a female side character who he’d eventually fall for in the story. She would get little or no time told from her perspective. This sounded better, but it still didn’t get me very excited. I have a lot of ideas for brand new series in my head I’d love to write, so if I want to do something with Kerbasi next year and keep those on the back burner, it has to be an angle that is super motivating for me to focus.

Then it came to me that I need to create an urban fantasy female lead who has some sort of interesting power but also a lot of issues that will get Kerbasi’s wings in a twist and instigate the event where they meet. I want them to clash hard against each other somewhat similar to how Lucas and Melena did (with their own unique journey, of course). It’s gotta be slow-burn, yet explosive so I could go four to five books and give them time to settle into a true relationship. There will be hot, spicy elements when the time is right for it as well, so it’s not going to be clean. Just giving fair warning for those who might need it.

Something about starting the story with the female but also giving Kerbasi his fair perspective (similar to how it goes between Bailey and Aidan in the Dragon’s Breath Series) is what feels right to me. That’s generally my happy writing place where I feel my best for writing. Also, it will work for any new readers who want to jump into this new series without knowing all the backstory of the two previous series.

So this is the tentative plan. As soon as I’ve finished the Galadon novel at the end of this year, I’ll do a deep dive back into the Sensor World because I need to refresh myself after the long break. After that, I’ll begin writing and give you all a tentative book release timeline and hopefully have figured out a series title by that point. I’m sure I’ll also share some excerpts to tide you over during the wait.

And for those wondering, I will squeeze in some appearances of the other Sensor Series characters, but they won’t feature heavily due to the fact Kerbasi will be in Melbourne, Australia. The long distance will make those opportunities more limited (I know from experience it’s a super long flight and none of the nephilim can flash that far). Having said that, ten years will have passed since events in Destined for Eternity (Kerbasi needed time to settle into his new life), so I definitely want readers to have a chance to see how the crew in Alaska is doing.

That’s the update. Hope this gets you excited for the next chapter in that universe and feel free to ask questions!

Darkness Wanes is now available!

I know you all have been waiting patiently (or in some cases impatiently) for the sixth and final novel in the Sensor Series to release.  Darkness Wanes is now available at Amazon and the other major retailers (see the bottom of this post for all the links).

This novel ended up being just over 126k words long in order to wrap up everything relating to Lucas and Melena (though a few open threads are left for spin-off books with other characters).  It took a long time to get this novel finished, but I’m pleased with how it turned out and hope you will be, too.  For audio listeners, my publisher just let me know Darkness Wanes will be released on June 21st in audio format.  They’ve got it on schedule with the same narrator who has handled all the other Sensor books.

There is also a bonus holiday short story featuring Kerbasi, titled An Unexpected Gift, included at the end of the book.  I originally revealed the story over at Nocturnal Book Reviews in December, but it has not been available in an ebook until now.  On the Sensor Series timeline, An Unexpected Gift falls after the end of the main series so it does give you a little glimpse into how things are going for some characters approximately seven months down the line.  There will also be full-length spinoff novels set in the Sensor World in the future.  I expect to release the first one in early 2017.  For the rest of this year, though, I’ll be focusing on the dragon books.

Below is a summary for the novel and links to the retailers.  Thanks to everyone who has stayed with me to the end of the series.  All the kind words of encouragement and messages from fans have meant a lot.

Darkness Wanes medium coverSUMMARY:

Melena Sanders is locked away in Purgatory, which is no vacation, but she’ll soon be returning to Alaska where troubles are mounting once again.  Suspicious fires are breaking out, supernaturals are being attacked, and there’s an enemy lurking out there waiting for his chance to strike.  Her lover, Lucas, is managing to hold their home together during her absence, but he’s more than ready for her to return.  It will take the two of them working together, along with friends and family, to overcome the darkness that is about to unleash.

Word count: 126,000 (approximate)

 


 

RETAILER LINKS:

AMAZON US    AMAZON UK     AMAZON DE     AMAZON AU     AMAZON CA

NOOK     KOBO     ITUNES

 

Darkness Wanes sneak preview

Progress on Darkness Wanes is coming along well.  I want to once again apologize for the lengthy delay in getting this novel out due to personal setbacks.  I finally got back into my writing groove last month and I’ve been working like mad on it ever since.  My poor family may have forgotten what I look like since I barricade myself behind a closed door most of the time.  Not to worry, though, they make me come out to eat occasionally.

The first half of the book is in good shape and I’m just revising the final chapters now before sending them off to my editor.  By the looks of things, this novel is going to end up being about 120k words.  As a comparison, Darkness Shatters was 96k and Stalked by Flames was 101k.  Darkness Wanes will definitely be the longest book I’ve ever written by quite a bit, but there is a lot to wrap up and I want to be sure to do the characters (and story) justice.  Special thanks to all the beta readers who’ve helped out along the way.  You all are awesome!

I have high hopes I will be able to release this novel by the end of the month.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.  Below are the first three chapters of Darkness Wanes (about 10k words).  Hope you enjoy 🙂

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Chapter One

Melena

Some places should be avoided at all costs.  Troll villages, the woods on a full moon, and retailers on Black Friday topped my personal list, but above them all—Purgatory.  It was an inhospitable island set outside of time and space where human souls went after death when they weren’t quite good enough for Heaven, but not bad enough for Hell.  One might consider it a sort of way station—though it was probably closer to a prison.  Unless you had a very good reason, you didn’t come here voluntarily.

The sandy beaches at the island’s edge could fry eggs or blister bare feet.  A prisoner couldn’t swim away, assuming they made it through all the guards first.  The ocean surrounding the land extended forever, an infinite mass of water with no apparent end.  Not that you’d want to be outside in Purgatory.  Blinding light shone down from a sun that appeared twice as large as Earth’s, and it generated more heat than any mortal could survive for more than a few minutes.  That is, assuming the low oxygen levels didn’t suffocate them first.

Jagged mountains rose in the middle, raw and intimidating.  All along them, human souls relived the crimes they’d committed in their past life.  These were people who weren’t good enough to enter Heaven yet, but neither were they terrible enough for Hell.  Purgatory served as a place for them to learn from their evil deeds before they went on to their final destination.

They had no bodies, only the light of their inner beings, but that didn’t reduce their suffering.  On the rare occasion I came close enough to them, I felt their pain and remorse in every fiber of my being.  Nothing could be worse than facing one’s past mistakes over and over again with no relief.  This place couldn’t be mistaken for an island vacation spot.  It was real, and it was only one step above Hell.

It wasn’t that much better for me, either.  The only difference being I wasn’t dead yet.  Purgatory also served as an immortal penitentiary, though supernatural inmates didn’t stay up top with the human souls.  The guardians of the place—sort of an offshoot breed of angels—kept us confined deep inside the mountains in a vast network of tunnels and carved-out prison cells.  Of all the inmates here, they hated me the most.  I’d broken into Purgatory twice, using modern firepower against them, to free others who didn’t deserve to be here.  Those people were now free, which made it worth it, but I had no way of escaping without assistance.  I was trapped here for my full three-month sentence.

In the caves we inhabited, it dropped to bone-numbing temperatures and the stone walls wept with the icy tears of its denizens.  That wasn’t meant to be poetic.  Purgatory had a way of torturing you with both your darkest memories and your most cherished.  I’d had a lot of time to think since arriving.  One moment I’d feel the pain of my worst mistakes, including those that led to the loss of good friends, and in the next moment I’d remember my lover, Lucas, or adopted daughter, Emily.  They were part of the good things in my life, but the longer I stayed in Purgatory, the more I wished I didn’t think of them.  It would have made my time easier that way.

This was an ugly place where nothing good belonged, especially in the bowels where I’d been confined.  The walkways were frozen except for the occasional numbing cold stream running along the path.  Sharp icicles hung from the ceilings, often falling on hapless victims.  I’d had my head struck more than once—made worse by the fact it took considerably longer to heal in Purgatory than on Earth.  It was also eerily dark.  If not for the greenish-blue glow emanating from cracks in the stone, even those with the best night vision wouldn’t have been able to see anything.  Then again, it didn’t seem to bother the guardians who lorded over their prisoners.  They moved around just fine.

Clink. Clink. Clink.  The sound of pickaxes droned on in an annoyingly familiar rhythm.  I suspected I’d hear them in my head long after I left this place.  I blew a strand of my auburn hair from my cheek where it had come loose from its braid and continued chipping away at the blue-gray stone in front of me.

This section of the tunnel and I had become well acquainted since the archangel, Remiel, dropped me off here two and a half months ago.  In that time, I’d managed to extract about five pounds of ore.  The older and stronger supernaturals working alongside me gathered much higher amounts.  Not that it really mattered.  A cavern several levels above us had at least a dozen piles of it wasting away.  The guardians had long since gotten enough to make all the chains and weapons they needed.  They just wanted us to continue adding to the heap.

I rubbed at my aching lower back.  Even an immortal body couldn’t handle fourteen hours of crouching in mines every day without getting sore.  By the end of my shift, my spine always became so bowed out of shape that I could hardly stand up straight without a lot of effort and pain.  If I never saw an underground tunnel again it wouldn’t be long enough.

The clinking of the axes slowed and whispers rose among the other prisoners.  I took a surreptitious gaze around to find our guards had wandered down the tunnel out of earshot.  It happened so rarely I had to seize the opportunity while it lasted.

“Eli,” I called softly to the dark-skinned nephilim hunched ten feet away.

He turned his head toward me.  “What?”

Eli wore the same basic uniform as me—buckskin trousers, a matching sleeveless top and leather boots.  We hadn’t gotten utilitarian clothing when we first arrived in Purgatory.  They’d given us long robes that chaffed at our skin and no footwear.  It made it difficult to navigate the treacherous tunnels.  After a few days, I’d had enough and went on strike.

No one else joined me at first.  I was a sensor, and the rest of the prisoners were nephilim.  Our races were eternal enemies, but I was trying to change that.  I’d mated with a nephilim, Lucas, and he’d made me immortal.  Most of the supernatural world knew about us and how we’d found common ground.  Some of them had grown to accept me, mostly in Alaska where we lived, but we had a long way to go before our races got along entirely.  The majority of the sensors and sups still didn’t trust each other.

For three days, my prison mates watched me get whipped every morning because I refused to leave my cell for work in the mines.  On the fourth day, Eli was the first to join me.  We’d met a couple of times before, and he’d seemed more open than most.  Eventually, all twelve nephilim participated in my little strike.

It wasn’t just the poor clothing choices I’d protested, but also the awful gruel they fed us every day.  The lack of oxygen and stronger gravity of Purgatory drained us too much already.  Poor nutrition made things worse.  Immortals might not be able to die, but they could become severely weakened if their basic needs weren’t met.  We needed humane treatment if we were going to have the energy to work.

The rest of my companions were centuries or even thousands of years old.  They’d lived during times when the weaker always submitted to the stronger.  It didn’t occur to them to demand more for themselves.

I was a modern woman and military veteran who believed in standing up for my rights.  The ancient guardians running Purgatory had no idea how to handle me, but I had experience dealing with their kind before.  In fact, I’d helped rehabilitate one of the worst among them.  I just had to suffer through their punishments for a while before I got my way.  Though it wasn’t easy—they nearly broke me more than once.

“How do you call on an archangel without a summoning stone?” I asked Eli.  There was a bit of Denzel Washington’s features in him that always struck me, especially in the eyes and chin.

He frowned at me.  “Why?”

He was constantly telling me to keep my head down and stay out of trouble.  Not that I did, and more often than not he got caught up in my battles with the guardians.  It wasn’t like I forced him to do my bidding.  Eli just had a need to help people no matter what it cost.  We had that in common, which was why we were both stuck here.

“Because I need to know.”  Working in the mines gave you a lot of time to plot.  I estimated that in about two or three weeks—they wouldn’t give an exact date—I’d be out of here.  I had things to do as soon as I got back home.

“Melena,” he said in a warning tone.  “I’m not helping you again.”

I glared.  “It’s important.”

“Let it go until we return to Earth.”  He turned away and began swinging his pickaxe again.

“Come on,” I said in a pleading tone.  “I just need to know how to summon an archangel.”

He ignored me.  I considered throwing my pickaxe at him, but I couldn’t risk drawing the attention of the guardians.  Not to mention the chain stretching between my ankle and a hook in the floor would keep me from getting the tool back.  All the prisoners were restricted so that we couldn’t move more than a few feet.

“Eli,” I growled when he still wouldn’t answer me.

A female nephilim with shoulder-length blond hair turned toward me.  “Be quiet!”

Sabelle’s golden eyes were filled with hatred.  It never ceased to amaze me how a woman with such a sweet nature could become that hostile toward someone she hardly knew.  When I’d first met her, her heart-shaped face had seemed welcoming and kind.  That only lasted until she discovered I was a sensor.

“What is your problem?” I asked her.  Not that I expected a logical reply.

Sabelle’s nostrils flared.  “You! Your kind are nothing but…”

“I can tell you how to do it,” Bartol interrupted, putting a stop to the hate speech.  He worked on the wall to my right and spoke so rarely that I was startled to hear his voice now.

I turned toward him.  Bartol’s long brownish-gold hair fell past his shoulders in light waves.  The oily strands didn’t quite hide the horrific scars on the left side of his face.  The burns marred what had once been handsome features.  Nephilim could usually heal from anything, but a magic spell had been infused with the damage so that he’d never be whole again.  Not even my ability to nullify magic could do anything to help him now.

Bartol had been in Purgatory for nearly a century as his penalty for seducing an angel.  Not long after arriving an overzealous guardian, Kerbasi, burned him as part of his own personal brand of punishment.  Bartol had faced many horrors since arriving here, but that was probably among the worst.  By my estimates, his sentence would finish around the same time as mine.  He was a friend of Lucas’ and we planned to help him as much as we could when he got out.

“You know?  How?” I asked. Continue reading

Cover reveal for Stalked by Flames

I’ve been keeping this quiet for a while now, but it’s finally time to announce a new series I’m starting this summer.  The idea for this came to me over a year ago.  At the time I was working on Darkness Divides and knew I needed to stay focused on the Sensor Series for a few more books before mixing anything else into my writing schedule, but the story continued to bug me.  While plenty of ideas hit me all the time this one refused to let go.  I jotted notes, wrote random scenes, and did some research, but it wasn’t until the release of Darkness Shatters that I allowed myself to focus on Stalked by Flames (though, not to worry, Darkness Wanes is still coming out in October).

It is the first novel in what I hope will become a long series.  The genre is urban fantasy with some apocalyptic elements and it has entirely different creatures/races than the Sensor books.  For those wondering about romance it is going to be a slow-burn that will play out over the course of the series.  There’s no rushing this one, but it will happen eventually.  The heroine will have her POV in first person and the hero in third person (much like what you saw in Darkness Shatters).

Next month I’ll post a book trailer, behind-the-scenes shots from the model photo shoot, and a book excerpt.  For now, you can check out the cover and book summary.  Hope you all are as excited about this one as I am!

Stalked by Flames cover (promo)

EXPECTED RELEASE DATE- July 20th, 2015

SUMMARY:

Bailey Monzac has just graduated college and is heading to her parents’ ranch for the summer when dragons invade. Like something out of her worst nightmare, the fire-breathing beasts rain down chaos and devastation on unsuspecting human populations. One minute Bailey’s planning her future; the next she’s merely trying to survive.

But it isn’t long before she discovers she’s different from the people around her—the dragons’ destructive flames don’t affect her. That gives her an edge, but it also means she’ll become a target for powerful individuals seeking to use her to their advantage. Bailey will have to distinguish between allies and enemies quickly as she gets drawn into a war unlike anything the Earth has seen before.

Add to your Goodreads TBR list here.

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I also have a lot of people to thank for the cover design on this one as it took a whole team to put my vision together.  Below you’ll find everyone involved in the process, but I’d like to give a special shout-out to Alison Esposito at Wild Wolf Leatherwork on Etsy for making the custom leather harness the model is wearing.  It turned out amazing!  Also, I can’t express how much I appreciate the help of my fan design team including Rachel, Sarah, and Kristy who helped me with wardrobe selection and model poses.  You ladies are awesome!

Background design with dragon- Jeff Brown Graphics

Model- Isabella Capri

Model photographer- Teresa Yeh

Hair stylist/make-up artist- Nadya Rutman

Cover design- Claudia McKinney

Typography- Catie McKinney

 

Darkness Shatters is now available!

For those of you who haven’t caught it yet, Darkness Shatters is now out.  This is the fifth installment of the series and events are really heating up as we near the end (one book left to go, not counting spin-offs).  If you didn’t read the three chapter sample I provided in my previous post, you may not know Lucas has his point of view in this installment.  He only gets about twenty percent of the novel with Melena still narrating the other eighty percent, but it is important at times you see things from his side (for the sake of the plots and their relationship).  I really enjoyed writing this one and hope you’ll enjoy reading it.

Below is a summary for the novel and links to the retailers.  Thanks to everyone who has stayed with me this far into the series.  It’s meant a lot to me.

Darkness ShattersSUMMARY:

Winter has come to Alaska and it’s about to be joined by death.

Since moving to Fairbanks, Melena Sanders has watched too many of her friends die because she couldn’t react fast enough. When a mysterious illness comes along targeting only supernatural races she’s determined to stop it. But as the death toll climbs she realizes finding a cure is more complicated than she thought. Melena might have to give in to plans to reveal the existence of supernaturals to the human world—as it may be the only way to save them.

Word count: 96,000 (approximate)

 

 

 

 

 

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RETAILER LINKS:

AMAZON US    AMAZON UK     AMAZON DE     AMAZON AU     AMAZON CA

NOOK     KOBO     ITUNES