Thanks to everyone for coming to the party! It was a lot of fun. Wow! So much to clean up now. And that chocolate fountain spilled all on the floor! Where are you all wandering off to? There are dishes to be done. Vacuuming! Come on, people!! Sheesh! Okay, fine, you want to know the winners of the contest? I can do that. All randomly chosen thanks to Random.org. And all have already been contacted by email to claim their prizes….
Signed ARC of THE DEMON IN ME
Comment #6 — Tori (Book Faery)
Signed hardcover of DEMON PRINCESS: REIGN CHECK
Comment #84 — Stephanie Kelly
Signed copy of BEWITCHED, BOTHERED & BEVAMPYRED
Comment #29 — Shanna
$20 Gift Card
Comment #42 — Maureen McGowan
$10 Gift Card
Comment #1 — Amy Jacobs
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**Note: Due to a dispute between Amazon and Penguin, this book (and any other Penguin book) is currently unavailable on Kindle. I’m hoping this will be resolved very soon so Kindle users can read it. More information about this problem can be found here.**
Hooray… today’s the day! THE DEMON IN ME, book one in my brand new Living in Eden paranormal romance series hits the bookstores. This has been such a fun series for me to write and I absolutely love the characters, especially Eden and Darrak. I truly hope that readers enjoy the book!!
Here’s the back cover copy:
Hell hath no fury…
Fate has led Eden Riley to become a “psychic consultant” to the police, even though her abilities are unreliable at best. Those paranormal powers are about to get her into a jam she couldn’t have predicted. After her hunky police detective partner guns down a serial killer in front of her, Eden realizes that she’s quite literally no longer alone. A voice in her head introduces himself as Darrak. He’s a demon. But not in a bad way!
>>Book #2 is out October 2010!
…like a woman possessed.
Darrak lost his original body 300 years ago thanks to a witch’s curse. This is the first time he’s ever been able to speak directly to a host, plus there’s a bonus. Eden’s psychic energy helps him to take form during daylight hours. He wants to use this chance to find a way to break his curse — finally. Otherwise, Eden’s going to have to learn to live with this sexy demon…like it or not. And she thinks she might like it.
My release day vlog (try to ignore how many times I say “um”!):
Hope you can stick around a bit for the party. Please leave a comment to be eligible for a prize (this is open to everyone, no matter where you live). Have a question? Ask away. I’ll be popping in to check comments and I’d be happy to answer them for you.
What am I giving away? Check out the following….
1. My last yellow-covered signed ARC of THE DEMON IN ME (collector’s edition!)
2. A signed hardcover copy of DEMON PRINCESS: REIGN CHECK (this is my second YA book that comes out in a few weeks and no relation to my adult demon series).
3. A super-rare, hard to find copy of the out of print BEWITCHED, BOTHERED & BEVAMPYRED anthology that includes stories from Gena Showalter, PC Cast, MaryJanice Davidson and Vicki Lewis Thompson, among many others, with my very first published story in it. This will be signed by yours truly.
4. A $20 electronic gift card for your favorite online book retailer (Amazon, B&N, Borders, etc.)
5. A $10 electronic gift card for your favorite online book retailer (Amazon, B&N, Borders, etc.)
I will choose winners at random tomorrow, Wednesday, May 5th at 9:00 p.m. EST. Good luck!
So please, enjoy yourself. Have a virtual cocktail, some virtual goodies from the buffet — I recommend the demonically delicious chocolate fountain. Darrak will be around to chat with party attendees, but remember, he loses his human form at sunset so I suggest taking a large step back from him at that time just in case he might want to possess your body. Then again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to Darrak.
Now that I have my cover, I can finally share more info about THE DEMON IN ME, the first book in my upcoming Living in Eden series. Before the cover art, it just doesn’t quite feel like a real book yet.
Paranormal romance, humor, a sexy hero, a relatable heroine, magic, mayhem, mystery, danger, and lots of fun! I’ve written the first two books in this series and I absolutely adore the main characters, Darrak and Eden. I hope my readers do, too!!
THE DEMON IN ME
May 2010 – Berkley Sensation
Hell hath no fury…
Fate has led Eden Riley to become a “psychic consultant” to the police, even though her abilities are unreliable at best. Those paranormal powers are about to get her into a jam she couldn’t have predicted. After her hunky police detective partner guns down a serial killer in front of her, Eden realizes that she’s quite literally no longer alone. A voice in her head introduces himself as Darrak. He’s a demon. But not in a bad way!
…like a woman possessed.
Darrak lost his original body 300 years ago thanks to a witch’s curse. This is the first time he’s ever been able to speak directly to a host, plus there’s a bonus. Eden’s psychic energy helps him to take form during daylight hours. He wants to use this chance to find a way to break his curse — finally. Otherwise, Eden’s going to have to learn to live with this sexy demon…like it or not.
And she thinks she might like it.
A short excerpt from Chapter 2….
“You’re a demon,” she said it so quietly even she had trouble hearing it.
“Yes.”
“And you’ve possessed me.”
“If you put it that way it sounds a bit ominous, doesn’t it? I’d rather think of it as ‘sharing living space.’”
It was true. She’d seen it with her own eyes when the serial killer had been killed. The black smoke hadn’t just been smoke—it was the demon he’d claimed to be possessed with. The demon that was now inside of her.
For a moment she was positive she’d faint. The feeling passed, but the steadily growing fear that filled her remained.
“Get out of me,” she said softly.
“That does sound like an excellent plan, but you need to understand, this isn’t my choice. I haven’t been able to exist outside of my host since—”
“Get out right now!” Eden clutched the baseball bat so tightly she was sure she’d get splinters. She put every ounce of energy she could summon from the universe into those four words. She’d never felt so fierce or certain about anything in her entire twenty-nine years of life—and that included kicking her cheating jerk of a fiancé out six months ago. Although, it was still a close second.
She felt rather than heard the demon gasp inside of her—inside her head, her chest, her entire body. As if she’d been punched in the stomach she let out a wheezing breath and doubled over as the black smoke exited through her mouth in one dark, tasteless, odorless stream. She scrambled back from it until she hit the wall behind her and held the bat up as if that would be enough to protect her from Hell itself.
The smoke hung there like a small black rain cloud, unmoving, five feet in front of her, for a few more moments. Then something changed. She watched, stunned, as it began to take on a recognizable shape. The entire process took less than thirty seconds, but it was as if time itself had stopped. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. All she could do was watch—waiting for a large, red, hulking, horned Hell-beast to appear and devour her whole.
All right, enough of these computer issues, I’m ready to start writing my next book, LIVING IN EDEN. I am so excited about this book and the characters. I’m READY TO START. I already have 11K done from my proposal. Deadline is February 1. Sounds like ages from now but it’s ONLY TWO AND A HALF MONTHS.
This story has been with me for a few years, actually. It started its life as a dark urban fantasy back in ’06 about a woman possessed with a Shadow Demon and she was the incubator for him — actually the romantic elements were rather Oedipal. However, since she had mad psychic skillz (skillz I since cannibalized to use as Kira’s empathic ability in COUNTDOWN) she was able to survive and grow in strength, and control her inner demon. Damn, I loved that proposal so much, but it lacked focus and worldbuilding. She had to save the world and there was a demon inside of her. As Simon Cowell says, “so what?”
So, I changed it. I drew on my strengths — breezy dialogue, humor, and romantic elements — and it slowly evolved into the story I now have outlined. I love the heroine. I love the hero. And I love the supporting cast.
And now I get to hang out with them for a while. I hope they love me, too. Especially when they find out what I have planned for them. *evil laugh*
Being that this is the first scheduled FULL DAY OF WRITING on this new project I anticipate two things:
1) My condo will become very clean since I tidy things up when I’m procrastinating, and,
2) I will more than likely have a nap. Knowing I have to accomplish something is a prescription for overwhelming weariness.
Since, alas, Hugh Jackman is not right for the part of the hero this time, I’ve been searching far and wide for the perfect actor to embody Darrak in the theater of my brain. I flirted with Josh Holloway, I snuggled up to Gerard Butler, I even checked out Dane Cook. My demon hero is that subtle mix of bad boy, jokester, and wounded soul. He has issues, but he’s a bit more jovial (at least, on the surface) than my previous emo heroes. Plus, he needs to be hot. I finally gave the part to Colin Farrell. He promises (not) to behave himself.
