And the REVELATION blog tour begins...

Today, I'm interviewed by Barb at The Reading Cafe. I'm talking about angels and demons and the end of the world. Cool stuff like that. Also chocolate, favourite authors and... well, chocolate.

We're giving away a copy of REVELATION to a lucky commenter. Yep, that's right, a free book. Stop by and say hi!

You can also follow The Reading Cafe on Twitter: TheReadingCafe

One week until REVELATION...

Well, I'm excited. Only a week to go until REVELATION hits stores!

You can read some snippets this week at my Facebook page. Come join me!

And soon, I'm kicking off a blog tour, with all the fun and giveaways you'd expect.

28 September ~ The Reading Cafe
3 October ~ Romance Writers of the Apocalypse
4 October ~ Literary Escapism
8 October ~ The Qwillery
10 October ~ RT Book Reviews
12 October ~ All Things Urban Fantasy
...and some more!

Hope to see you there!

New release: Hunter's Blood, a short and tasty vampire romance

Demon-hunting vampires, slaying and hot sex. What more do you want?

HUNTER'S BLOOD, a vampire romance short story.

A powerful young vampire demon-huntress teams up with a legendary slayer to rid their city of soul-munching demons – but he's already broken her heart once. Will he betray her again in his burning quest for revenge?

Gina Santangelo is the toughest huntress in the Guild, unmatched with blade and vampire blood-magic as she keeps the city safe from soul-munching demons. Until she crosses swords with Luka Dragovic, a legendary slayer, the only man who can help her save the city from a fresh demon incursion. But he's also the man who broke her heart five years ago, when he defected to the enemy—and Gina vows that this demon-loving traitor will never best her, either in battle or in love.

Luka can't resist this fiery, defiant adversary—the very woman whose memory kept him alive through five years shackled in hell, tortured by a sadistic demon. Now Luka burns for revenge—but to kill this demon, he'll need Gina's rare brand of magic, which she's sworn never to share, least of all with the man she despises for a traitor. A power Luka can gain only by possessing her, body and blood…


Cool, huh? My first new release in ages! You can buy for Kindle here -- it's only $2.99! What a bargain! -- or download the first Kindle chapter for free. A Nook version is coming soon.

And if you enjoy it? I'd be stoked if you could Like it, tag it, review it, recommend it to your friends. You'd be doing me a favour. Thanks!

Romance Writers of the Apocalypse launch party! With zombies!!!

Get fit. Be violent. Write smut.

Pop on over to Romance Writers of the Apocalypse! It's a brand new blog, and we're giving away free books and other cool stuff for our launch. Check it out:

"We're discussing the Apocalypse and giving away sh*t. All of us and lots of it. More ebooks than you can poke an axe at and some paper and ink ones too. Comment on our blog any time from Friday 13 - Sunday 15 as many times as you like (though we'll mock you if you get out of hand - be warned). Adore us and implore us to give you stuff. You never know, it might work. We're impressionable like that. And unstable. But that's half the fun!"

Topics include Apocalypse of the Living Dead (how will YOU defeat this pesky zombie hordes??) and Bi-Brides of the Apocalypse (All the people you fancy are wiped out. What to do?)

So click on over there and win some books. You know you want to... 

York Minster, and rebels in fantasy

Hopped on the train on the weekend to visit York. (That's down in the middle of England, for those who don't know. Kind of halfway between Northumberland and London.)

And look, it's spring! Sunshine! Daffodils beside the wall! Leaves on the trees! ... well, there aren't. Not yet. But we can pretend!

Here's a pic of York Minster, or part of it. it's too big to photograph with a little digital camera.

It's actually the Cathedral of York -- the archbishopric of York is second only to Canterbury in seniority, apparently. But it's called a Minster because it has an Anglo-Saxon connection -- the existing building was built on the site of an old Anglo-Saxon church, before the Normans barged in and did for them. There are also Roman ruins beneath. Old Stuff. Yeah.



And an odd thing occurred to me, while I was inside York Minster, marvelling at Old Stuff:

The English (on the whole) aren't proud of their Civil War.

Granted, this occurred to me as I was listening to our tour guide tell the story of the Minster's stunningly beautiful and acoustically perfect Chapter House, which only narrowly escaped being sold off and pulled down for stone by a bunch of Commonwealth Puritans, who had abolished bishops (as all good Puritans would) and therefore saw no need for a Chapter House.

This tour guide was an Anglican. He didn't like Puritans. But even so, it struck me that you don't hear many English people waxing nostalgic for the good old days of Cromwell and the Protectorate. Sure, it was a while ago. There aren't many 400-year-old English people. But you know what I mean.

Still, it put an odd taste in my mouth. I come from a culture -- and so do Americans -- where rebellion, hell-raising and civil disobedience is lauded. Eureka Stockade. Mutiny on the Bounty. Rum Rebellion. The Wild West, Confederates vs Yankees, the civil rights movement. (Unless you're one of those Marxist fellows, of course, in which case off with your heads! etc.. But never mind about that.)

Fact was, Charles I was an astonishingly bad king with godly delusions. The system needed fixing. They fixed it -- made the monarch accountable -- and it's still fixed today. I think that deserves at least a small round of applause.

Anyway. Obligatory writing-related musing: in high fantasy, we love hereditary monarchies. Mr. Grimy Goat-Herder is the 'rightful king', so he's our hero, no matter what kind of moron he is. The throne is 'his by right'. Why? Because the prophecy says so. And we'll cheer for Grimy while he starts horrendous wars to get his hands on that crown.

Whereas in urban fantasy, we generally 'root' for the rebels. The lone wolves, the kick-ass vampire hunters, the cure-is-worse-than-the-disease law-enforcement types. They're anti-establishment, even if they're part of the establishment they're fighting against. The ones who rebel against authority and never do what they're told.

I also notice (at least it appears this way to me) that there's very little UF on the shelves in England.

Just saying.

Perhaps someone needs to write a kick-ass flintlock-punk UF. Solomon Kane with a purpose. A Puritan Anita Blake who hunts down Royalist vampires and dirty Popish witches for Cromwell's Commonwealth, whilst shagging dashing Cavalier werewolves on the side and secretly flirting with the old religion.

Dunno about you, but I'd read the hell out of that...

Six Sentence Sunday ~ Revelation

Seeing as I just turned in editor revisions on REVELATION (yay!) I thought I'd post a quick snippet. This is from page 1. It's summer in Manhattan, a few years from now, and there's something strange in the water...

Today, of all days. It was Thursday. The world couldn't end on a Thursday.

Luniel, the fallen angel, crouched on the shore of Liberty Island in a hot August sunset with blood lapping at his feet.

It licked the rocks beneath his boots, clotting. All the way across the bay, to the firelit Brooklyn shore and the gleaming blue arcs of the Narrows Bridge, what used to be water gleamed sick and scarlet.

Teaser Tuesday: GERMLINE by T.C McCarthy

This week's Teaser Tuesday (hosted by Should Be Reading) is from a really cool book I read on the plane this weekend: GERMLINE, book 1 of the Subterrene War series, a military futuristic/SF thriller by T.C. McCarthy.

A seriously mad book, folks. It's about this reporter who goes to the front line in a hellish (and I mean truly fucked-up) futuristic war. It's got elements of horror (and a little crazy-ass romance!) as well as sci-fi/futuristic action. Ceramic thermal suits, people. Seriously? Putting on a gas mask used to freak me out. Having to live in full gear for weeks on end... brrr.

Book 2 is coming out in March, called EXOGENE. Check out the author's Amazon author page.

I knew my size and I told him. I'd been through Rube-Hack back in the States; all of us had. The Pentagon called it Basic Battlefield Training, but every grunt I'd met had just laughed at me, and not behind my back.

Rube. Babe. Another civilian too stupid to realise that anything was better than Kaz because Kazakhstan was another world, purgatory for those who least deserved it, a vacation for the suicidal, and a novelty for those whose brain chemistry was messed up enough to make them think it would be a cool place to visit. To see firsthand. Only graduates of Rube-Hack thought that last way, actually wanted Kaz.

Only reporters.

"Real special," he said. Chappy lifted a suit from the pile and dropped it at my feet, then handed me a helmet. Across the back, someone had scrawled forget me not or I'll blow your punk-ass away. "That guy doesn't need it anymore, got killed before he could suit up, so it's in decent shape."