Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Tempestuous!

I haven't recommended a book for a while, but I'm really excited about yesterday's release of Lesley Livingston's final book in her Wondrous Strange series, Tempestuous. Seriously, check out this gorgeous cover!




But not only is this an awesome series (about faeries, natch ;)) but the author is also a wonderful person. And funny. SO funny. Lesley is a Canadian actress turned author and one of my favorite things she acted in is this commercial.:D



Heehee! I still laugh every time I see it. Anyway, Lesley is the lovely blonde girl. Her series begins with Wondrous Strange and Darklight (below) and concludes with Tempestuous which just came out yesterday.




Wondrous Strange is, essentially a fantasy about faeries and Shakespeare involving two lead characters, Kelley and Sonny. For a taste of Kelley's writing style, I want to give you a little excerpt from pages ten and eleven of Darklight (you can find the full first sixty some-odd pages on Harper's site, here). It's an excerpt she read when we toured together in Canada last year, and even though I heard it multiple times, it's still one of my favorite parts of the whole series!



Kelley reached the Ladies Pavillion on the shores of Central Park Lake and mounted the steps. Her four-leaf clover firmly attached around her neck, she leaned on the railing, gazing out over the still water.

"This bud of love by summer's ripening breath . . ."

She murmured her lines and pictured Sonny climbing a trellis to her balcony.

"May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Good night, good night! As sweet repose as rest
Come to thy heart as that within my breast!"

"Oh wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?" asked a voice in the darkness.

Kelley glanced up, startled. "Uh . . ." she stammered, flustered at being taken off guard.

The moonlight pouring down onto the pavilion steps illuminated her like a spotlight.

"Sonny?" Kelley peered hopefully into the darkness of the surrounding woods, trying to make out where the voice had come from. No . . . not Sonny. Sonny wouldn't joke with her like that. It had to have been one of her fellow actors from the theater screwing around. "Alec?" There was still no answer. To cover her momentary unease, Kelley laughed a little. "Fine, I'll play your silly game," she said, and answered with her next Juliet line. "What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?"

"Well," the voice answered, "I'll take that pretty necklace, for starters."

Kelley put a hand to her throat as a stranger stepped out of the shadows and into the light. It wasn't Alec Oakland.

"And I'll take any other jewelry you got. I'll take your wallet too, just for the hell of it. And your watch, if it ain't a knockoff." The man radiated casual menace as he ambled toward her. Her was lean and tattooed and wore a dirty denim jacket and motorcycle boots.

Great, Kelley thought, a knot of fear tightening in her stomach. A mugger with a taste for Shakespeare. This could only happen in Central Park.

*Any typos or formatting issues are mine; please do read the actual, typeset text here!*

Anyway, it's a fun series with a great world building and a healthy dose of theatre! (Which makes me really happy.:D) So Tempestuous came out yesterday so if you are looking for a new faerie series, you may want to try this one.

And for a final treat, here is Lesley's awesome book trailer!




**ETA*** D'oh! I'm a moron and forgot to mention that I am giving away a copy of the entire series. Please leave a comment letting me know why faeries (of any kind) are awesome to enter. (See? Super easy.:D)

Ciao!

Monday, December 20, 2010

The Last Three Weeks

Wow! I have had such a crazy last three weeks!

What I have done:

*Had a baby (:D)
*Put in about 50 hours finishing up the first round of revisions on Life After Theft and turned it in! (Not quite by my self-imposed deadline, but before my editor-imposed deadline, phew!)
*kissed the baby about a trillion times
*Made about 15 pounds of hand-dipped chocolates (Penuche in milk, truffles in milk, Strawberry-lime in white, orange creme in white) plus Velveeta fudge.
*Just sat and looked at my baby for about an hour a day. . . maybe more.
*Finished 100% of my Christmas shopping!
*Took about a hundred pictures of the baby.
*Selected and contacted ten winners from the Illusions cover contest and sent out prize packs. That included winners from Finland, Sweden, Australia, and Canada! (I get excited about foreign readers.:D)
*Tweeted about 50 of the said one hundred pictures.
*Finished practicing and then directed the choir Christmas performance at church yesterday.
*Spent hours trying to make the baby smile (which she does!)



*Did I mention kissing the baby?


What I did NOT do in the last three weeks:

*Blog


Ahem.

Okay, couple of items of business.

UK cover for book three!!!!



Wait, what? That doesn't look quite right, you say? I have known this for a while and keep forgetting to tell you guys! In the UK book three will be called Wild, which I absolutely love! . . . for reasons I can't tell you yet . . .:D But I'm really excited about the new title and this beautiful cover!

*Bonus content: One of the things we are doing as a lead up to Illusions is that I am writing some bonus content that will be posted in various places over the next few months. They will be short pieces that take place either between Spells and Illusions, or during Illusions but from a different person's point of view. I'll be writing them over the next month and they will be posted the first couple of months of 2011. I will let everyone know where they can find them as soon as they are up.

*I will also be posting some bits from Illusions as well as some fun cover copy as we lead up to the Illusions release. . . . Starting today! Special holiday gift, the following is the short scene Harper is putting on the back of the book jacket. However, two disclaimers:

1.) David fans, this scene is taken completely out of context.
2.) Tamani fans, this scene is taken completely out of context.

You have both been warned.:D

And with the standard ***SPOILER ALERT***, here you go:

"When you kissed me, I got all these . . . ideas. For potions I've never heard of." Laurel thought of the way the word poison had invaded her mind. "I think maybe they're forbidden."

"Why?" Tamani asked.

"It told me how to make potions from you." Laurel lost herself in thoughts of potions, powders, and poisons she somehow knew she was never supposed to learn.


***END OF SPOILERS***

Happy Holidays!

Ciao!