Nightshade ARC

***The winner of the signed ARC of NIGHTSHADE is comment #30 Spav. Congrats! Please contact me at michelle@michellerowen.com with your mailing address by November 30th to claim your prize. And thanks to everyone else for your comments. I will be giving away at least one more ARC of this book so please check back soon.***

A few appearances on the web this week you should check out:

I’m giving away the winner’s choice of either Something Wicked or Touch and Go to a commenter at Tote Bags n Blogs. Tonight’s the deadline for that!

And don’t forget, there’s still time to bid on a one-of-a-kind marked up copy of Demon Princess: Reign or Shine at the Leave a Mark charity blog. Deadline is this Sunday.

And on Wicked Little Pixie’s blog I did a fun Q&A and I’m giving away a copy of Something Wicked. Deadline is Monday.

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I don’t have many of these lovelies, but I’m giving away one ARC (Advance Reading Copy) of NIGHTSHADE right here to a commenter. If you’re reading this mirrored elsewhere, please visit www.michellerowen.com/blog to enter.

This is the beginning of a a few stories about Jillian Conrad, a woman injected with a formula that makes her blood both irresistible and deadly to vampires. It’s a lot darker, sexier, and more action-packed than my previous single titles, but definitely still with an edge of humor. And did I mention a hot romance with a very dangerous man?

Following this is Bleeding Heart, a novella in the Primal anthology (with Lora Leigh, Jory Strong, and Ava Gray) which releases in February at exactly the same time as Nightshade (although, try to read Nightshade first to avoid spoilers!), and Bloodlust which is out next July.

Gotta say, I’m pretty excited about these books and hope that readers, those who’ve read me before and new ones, will like ‘em. If they do, I’m more than happy to write more about the characters and this world!

If you’d like a taste of Nightshade, I’ve posted the first chapter here. The book will officially be released on February 1, 2011.

To enter to win the ARC of Nightshade, please tell me what you love the most about vampire novels. And/or what’s your favorite vamp novel of all time and why?

I’ll choose a winner at random Sunday, November 21st at 10:00 EST. International entries are welcome. Please check back to see if you’ve won and for details on how to claim your prize. Good luck!

Leave a Mark

I’ve donated a signed hardcover copy of Demon Princess: Reign or Shine to the Leave a Mark Charity Auctions. This charity is pretty cool for a couple of reasons. First, because the money they raise goes to buy books for underprivileged kids.

Also, because the books they auction off are one-of-a-kind. The author has gone through it to make notes in the margins, kind of like when you watch a DVD of a movie with the director or actor’s commentary turned on. It’s kind of cool to see the behind the scenes stuff, the inspiration behind scenes, or other little comments. I’m doing this for Reign or Shine and I can pretty much guarantee I’ll only be marking this particular book up like this one time only!

So if you enjoy my writing, or if you’re a fan of the Demon Princess books, you definitely want to consider bidding on this auction. Here’s an example of one of the pages from the book I’ve already marked up so you can see basically what you’ll be getting THROUGHOUT the entire book!

CLICK HERE to bid on the marked up copy of Reign or Shine and find out more about this great charity!

I am now very focused on writing That Old Black Magic. I want my first draft done by Christmas, which will give me the month of January to polish up my second draft so it’s all ready for my February 1st deadline. My to-do list has been mostly done. My desk is clear (not that I write at a desk, I write on the couch, but you know what I mean), so I have no more excuses but to write, write, WRITE!

New deal – Paranormal *Mystery*!

Sometimes it might seem as if everything is happening all at once when it’s actually the culmination of many months of hard work. For example, I have been lucky enough to get two deals for new books in just the last month!

I’ve already talked about the YA deal with Harlequin Teen, which I’m super excited about. But today I get to tell you all about the other one.

It has a bit of a back story to it….

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is: “Will there will be more Immortality Bites books?” The five books featuring Sarah Dearly, fledgling vampire, are currently complete as a series. Although it made me a bit sad, I knew from about book #3 that there would only be enough of a romantic arc to last for five books. (I mean, how long can you keep with the “does he love me/Does she love me thing before it starts to get a bit long in the fang? About five books, that’s how long).

Since the books were published as paranormal romance, I wanted to end on a high romantic note, which I feel I did with Tall, Dark & Fangsome. It won the 2009 Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award for Vampire Romance, a perfect bookend to Bitten & Smitten, which won the Holt Medallion for Best First Book back in 2007. I feel it had a very good run and I’m proud of each of the books, which so far have/will be published in five countries other than the U.S.

I always joked that if I wanted to keep writing books about Sarah I’d have to start killing people off so she could solve the mysteries.

“Okay,” Sarah said. “I’m actually fine with that. Let’s do it.”

I tried to ignore her.

However, I’d forgotten that, out of all the characters I’ve ever written, my first born had developed a mind of her own over the years. And she was very, very stubborn when it came to getting the things she wanted.

Time went by. I was writing about other characters, other worlds, and despite missing Sarah, I was happy doing that. I’d kept getting reader emails or comments wondering if there would be more books about her. “Unlikely,” I always said. “But I’m open to the possibility in the future. So you never know.”

And Sarah started tapping her foot, glaring at me. She didn’t think her story was finished. Not by a long shot. And patience has never been one of her virtues.

As I was working up some new proposals earlier this year, she started speaking very loudly in my head. All the time. I told her that it was impossible for more books. She disagreed.

“It wouldn’t be a series continuation per se,” she assured me. “More like a rebirth. A different direction. How about…dare I say it? Mystery!?”

“But, uh, I don’t write mystery.”

“Why the hell not? It would be so much fun!”

My mind immediately began flowing with ideas that were too much fun to resist.

“Okay.” I nodded firmly. “Let’s do this.”

And ninety pages of proposal material poured out of my imagination and onto the page. Like buttah.

This is not Immortality Bites nor will it be promoted as such, BUT it will star Sarah and Thierry as they embark on their eternal lives together, therefore there will definitely still be romantic elements threaded into the mystery plots. I really wouldn’t have it any other way.

This was the deal announcement on Publisher’s Marketplace:

Fiction: Mystery/Crime
Michelle Rowen’s BLOOD BATH & BEYOND, pitched as True Blood meets Hart to Hart as a fledgling vampire and her master vampire fiance head to Vegas to bust criminals at a child beauty pageant and investigate who’s been draining local humans of their blood, to Cindy Hwang at NAL, in a two-book deal, by Jim McCarthy at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (World English).

I honestly can’t express how excited I am to continue on with these fun characters — but in a different genre and with a different publisher. I’ve been told that this normally just isn’t done. But I’m thrilled for the opportunity and hope that fans of the Immortality Bites books will follow Sarah Dearly to the mystery aisles, and that new readers will enjoy reading about my vampire couple in their fresh series starter. Reading the original books will not be necessary, but will certainly enhance a reader’s experience with the new books to know the back story.

I am very thankful to Cindy Hwang, Leis Pederson, and Penguin/NAL for thinking outside the box and giving me this wonderful opportunity. And huge thanks to my agent, Jim McCarthy, for thinking it was a great idea from the get-go instead of patting me on my head and telling me to forget about it.

And I definitely want to thank my readers too, so very much. If not for the continued interest in more books about these characters, I might have been much more successful in ignoring Sarah.

But I’m very glad I didn’t!

And yes, if it’s not already apparent, I do love vampires very, very much. And I’m finding that it’s not just a passing fancy! That I get to write about them, both light and dark ones, is something I feel very lucky about every time I sit down at my keyboard.

So that’s all the good news.

The bad news…if there is any, really, in this situation, is that these books won’t be out FOR A WHILE. Right now we’re looking at January 2013 for the release date. Yes, two whole years from now!! But I promise it’ll be worth the wait…….

UPDATE: The release date’s been moved up! Looks like we’re looking at Summer 2012. Totally closer! Now that just means I need to write it sooner!!!

Cover for BLOODLUST

I am really LOVING this cover so much — it’s perfect for the book. The art department at Penguin is truly talented! I think I’m on a cover roll!!

BLOODLUST is the second book about Jillian Conrad, a woman who’s injected with a formula that turns her blood poisonous to vampires. It comes out July 5, 2011 from Berkley Sensation, following both NIGHTSHADE, the first book, and “Bleeding Heart,” a novella in the PRIMAL anthology, which both come out in unison on February 1st. I’m going to hold off on posting the back cover copy for BLOODLUST for a bit longer since, while fantastic, it has a bit of a spoiler for the first book in it.

However, I am going to put up the first chapter for NIGHTSHADE a bit early. So if you want a little taste of my darker world of Jillian Conrad, please give a read right here. Only 2-1/2 months till it’s officially out!

NIGHTSHADE, PRIMAL, and BLOODLUST are all up for pre-order on Amazon right now.

Nanowrimo 2010

Right now I’m what I’d consider a casual participant in Nanowrimo 2010. Due to a few things that have come up in the last couple of weeks, I’m only getting started on my new book, THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC, today. I think I’ll get a lot of words done in the next few weeks, but not sure if it’ll amount to 50K. And that’s okay.

I’m a big believer in Nanowrimo. It was Nanowrimo 2003 that helped me finish my very first book from beginning to end. The first time, after many false starts and books that petered out after thirty pages, that I ever officially typed the magic words “THE END.” It proved to me I could do this. And since then I’ve written 20 books (give or take…a few of which are, and always will be, unpublished).

I was asked to do a motivational email for a local Nano group and thought I’d share what I wrote here as well.

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Greetings Nanowrimos!

Whether you’ve written twenty books or this is your very first one, I’m going to let you in on a secret that you might already know a little something about.

Writing is Hard Work!

Sure it is. But it is also:

Awesome. Frustrating. Exhilarating. Fulfilling. Painful. Silly. Ego-deflating. Inspiring. Tough. Fun. Heartbreaking. Wonderful.

What other hobby or profession can you get this sort of an experience from? Like, seriously?

Okay, you could be a professional roller coaster rider, but that’s not terribly practical.

I’m not going to tell you that it’s going to be a totally smooth ride this month, but it will be a ride you won’t soon forget. There will be ups and downs and some of those unexpected turns or drops might make you scream your head off (let’s continue with the roller coaster metaphor, shall we?), but at the end, when you’re feeling windblown and perhaps a little nauseous, you will know you’ve accomplished something that not too many other people have accomplished.

You’ve written a novel.

Fifty thousand words that poured out of your imagination. You created characters, worlds, plots, subplots, dialogue, description. Out of nowhere. Poof.

So cool.

You might be a bit battle weary today, tomorrow, or very soon. There might be those little doubt weasels in the back of your mind that whisper lies to you from their little weasel lips — telling you that you can’t do this, that you’re not good enough, that there are better things to do with your precious time than sit at the keyboard and Make Stuff Up.

Don’t listen to them. They’re just jealous. Here’s a tip I’ve discovered to help ignore those weasels — the faster you type the less influence they will have on you. They will be crushed by the sheer weight of your wonderful, magical words.

So to recap:

1)    Writing is both hard work and awesome!

2)    Writing is magic!

3)    Ignore the doubt weasels that tell you to stop because they are WRONG and STUPID and you are CREATIVE and AMAZING!

4)    And, most importantly, have fun!!!

Happy writing!!

Michelle Rowen

**

And I mean it. Writing is magic.

Speaking of magic, THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC is calling my name. It’s saying “Michelle, why are you ignoring me? You remember that your deadline for me is February 1st, right?”

“Yes, I remember. Sheesh.”

For what it’s worth, I’m really looking forward to diving back into Darrak and Eden’s world. I have A LOT of ground to cover in this third book, the one that will answer all of those pesky little questions readers might have after finishing SOMETHING WICKED. Oh yes.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I have some writing to do……

New deal!

I’m happy to announce that I’ve sold two new young adult urban fantasy novels to Harlequin Teen, the home of such awesome YA as those written by Rachel Vincent, Julie Kagawa, Maria V. Snyder, and Gena Showalter, among others. I’m very excited for the chance to write for them!

Here’s the official deal announcement from Publisher’s Marketplace:

Michelle Rowen’s NIGHTWATCHERS Books 1 and 2, after her soul is stolen in a kiss, a 16-year-old must join a force of demons and angels to protect humanity from an immortal threat, to Natashya Wilson at Harlequin Teen, by Jim McCarthy at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (World).

Angels and demons working together against a common enemy…and the girl who helps them find a way not to tear each other apart in the process. And of course I have a rather epic love triangle planned. It’s an idea I’ve had for a very long time and I’m very happy to get the chance to finally write it! It will be scheduled to release in Spring 2012.

I’m going to be writing book one right after I finish Eden #3 — THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC — which I’m starting in earnest tomorrow.

Speaking of Eden, and in other good news, I found out yesterday that SOMETHING WICKED is a nominee in Romantic Times Magazine’s Reviewer’s Choice Awards for paranormal fiction! Niiiice!

Release day for TOUCH AND GO!

***The winners of the signed copies of TOUCH AND GO are sandra weir and infinitieh. Please contact me at michelle@michellerowen.com to let me know your mailing addresses! Thanks to everyone who entered!***

It’s the release day for my second Harlequin Blaze – TOUCH AND GO! And I’m going to give away two signed copies of the book here on my blog to a couple randomly selected commenters to this post. See bottom of this post for more deets!

Touch and Go

Oh, the Bahamas. What a perfect place for a fling! Or is it?

Carrie Stanfield is there on assignment with the hottest guy ever! The chemistry between them is more volatile than the tropical storm that strands them on a deserted island. So why the heck won’t Patrick McKay touch her already?

Patrick would love to get his hands all over Carrie’s sweet body. Unfortunately, he’s been fooling around with a charm that makes touching another person very hard. But not touching Carrie is making him even harder…

It’s not looking very good for these two. Then again, when you mess around with magic, the most seductive things can happen….

This book was a lot of fun to write — kind of like a mini-vacation since it took me to a delicious tropical destination. If you read HOT SPELL, you will recognize the hero of this book, Patrick McKay, who has some issues to deal with — to say the least — on his very rocky path to true love.

Check out an excerpt here.

TOUCH AND GO is also available as an audiobook! (Note: Audible.com currently lists it at 51 minutes, but it’s really more like five hours).

To enter to win one of two signed copies of this book, please leave a comment on my website blog (if you’re viewing a mirrored version of this post, please visit HERE to enter), and tell me — What tropical destination would you most like to visit? For example, I’d love to visit Hawaii one of these days — what a gorgeous State! And the Bahamas, the location for the majority of TOUCH AND GO is also very, very tempting….

I’ll pick my two winners on Wednesday, November 3rd at 9:00 p.m. EST. Good luck!