Yikes it's been awhile!

Just an update on what's happening with this blog...not a lot! A lot of posts were moved to my website and once that happened I sort of just stopped posting. But I'm starting to get a lot of questions on Rebecca's 4th book and you should know it's moving along and I'm hoping it will be out before 2018.

it shouldn't be a spoiler to say that Rebecca will regret her decision to go back to the island almost as soon as she lands. where will she stay? What will Cassandra do? What will lee do when he realizes just how good alistair has been taking care of Rebecca? It's all moving along and I'll keep you posted when I know more. Thanks for stopping by!

Bigger, badder and uncut!

Bigger, badder and uncut!


Funny how if you take that out of a movie context it has all sorts of inappropriate connotations, isn't it?

But this year is in fact going to be all of those things! In terms of bigger, you may have noticed the website and all of its shiny glossiness. I hope you think it's as pretty as I do. There should also be some more posting and general online presence this year which I am super excited about. We recently moved, twice, and that sort of threw things into disarray for awhile. But not anymore!

In terms of badderness or baddieness, I recently went to a writing retreat led by the lovely Mary Buckham (who also happens to be an UF author with a great series) where I reached the conclusion that all I really want to write are villains who become heroes despite themselves. Maybe this isn't too shocking considering Lucas, but I strayed a bit with Zack and Edward. They were restrained, cold perhaps, but good guys. Screw that.

Which means I'm writing vampires again. And it feels soooo good! The plan is to finish this thing I'm now working on, a trilogy, and then release them close together. I don't like leaving people in suspense (despite how it appears with the vicious cliffhangers.) and writing under pressure just makes me grumpy. So there is something happening, you WILL be happy about it and once I've got a bit more written I'll be telling you all about it.

Finally, I'm not sure how uncut this is but audiobooks are about to arrive! If you've been asking me for audiobooks (you know who you are!) then you'll be thrilled to know it's finally happened. Valerie in audio. And the gal reading it, Emily Woo Zeller, came highly recommended and is tres awesome. Bye for now and if you're not on the newsletter, sign up! I'm going to have some pretty spectacular giveaways pretty soon, especially for any vampire diaries fans out there. That's everyone, right?

Betwixt a Wolf and a Hard Place Cover Reveal!! Out by Halloween!

Bewitching the Werewolf 2

Yes, it looks like it's happening. BTW is getting a sequel. A novella that has been a lot of fun to write. Without spoilering too much, here is an excerpt (pre final edit so it could change!) of megan's next case! Whoo!

A half-eaten pack of Tums was sitting on my boss’ desk when I walked in. Papers were everywhere. The man is a genius with delegation, papers usually come in and go back out as if they have wings. The fact that his desk was covered in sheets of cheap white paper and post-it notes sent alarm bells ringing through me.

“You,” he gave me the finger point. “Who would’ve thought the day would come when I would be happy to see you?” he said, in total seriousness.

“Right back at you. I like the haircut. What’s up?” The man was bald and had been for twenty years, I only said it to piss him off. His eyes flicked to the chair across from him wanting me to sit. I didn’t. He sighed unhappily.

“There have been three abductions this week. The vampire queen didn’t get up from her coffin, they went to check on her and she wasn’t there. Just gone. No note, no ash, no nothing.”

“Huh,” I said. Cause that was unusual. Vampires didn’t travel without their coffins. From what I understood, it had more to do with comfort than necessity. Like a stuffed animal or a pillow except a coffin. How weird was that? It was one of the many reasons that it was a personal policy of mine to avoid vampires.

“The shifters have reported a missing were-hamster—”

Yeah, that’s right, were-hamster. “Did they check her wheel?” I asked, and thought I saw a curl of smoke rise from my boss’s forehead.

“And most importantly, the New York Guardian is gone.”

“You mean the librarian?”

“Of course I mean the librarian.” His teeth were clenched when he said it. 

The New York Guardian guarded all the spell books and histories for all the local Supes. Anything supernatural that someone might’ve wanted written down (or didn’t want written down but was interesting) was kept in her shop down on 45^th Street. One could go in and get a coffee, a potion and a copy of what the Fey were up to during the 1800’s if one wanted. Although I don’t know why anybody would want Fey History, they were damned boring. Spent a lot of time tidying parks and making flower chains.

He pointed a sausage-like finger in my direction. I hated that frickin finger. “Start at the Guardian’s shop, do a recreation spell, see if you can get an image of what happened. This has to be solved fast. The vamps are blaming the weres, the weres are spoiling for a fight as always, and if we’re not careful the humans will get involved.”

And no one wanted that. Talk about up a creek without a paddle. The human police were next to useless. 

A Lady Most Dangerous...is out

Want to know how it starts? I love this beginning. Poor Edward. He's such a great tortured hero. Here is the beginning of LMD....

Every year, the Marwood ball was packed to the rafters with the rich and the richer, the titled and the landed, the people who wanted to move up the social ladder and those who were clinging on by the tips of their fingernails. This year was, of course, no different.

Edward wondered if there was a certain comfort in that predictability – things didn’t change, events occurred every season and would go on until the day he died. And even then the events wouldn’t stop; he just wouldn’t be expected to attend anymore.

That was something at least.

The smell of pomade and starch was strong, the room overheated from all the candles and hot air as the guests prattled on and on about how dreadful the prior night’s musicale had been. Five young women trotted out before the ton so that they could display just how badly they played the pianoforte. It had been excruciating.

“And that’s the Duke of Somervale,” he heard a girlish voice whisper from somewhere to his left and above. There was a balcony there where people would have punch and look at the dancers.

And apparently gossip about him.

He couldn’t say why he just stood there and listened. He should have turned around and given them a glare or moved off and ignored them.... But he didn’t; for some reason he couldn’t define, he stayed and listened.

“My sister was ever so in love with him when she made her debut.”

“Which sister?” a female voice asked. Edward suspected he didn’t know her either.

“Anne.”

“Ooohh, what happened?”

Edward wracked his brain, trying to sort through recent debutantes he knew by the name of Anne. No one in particular came to mind.

“She met him. At the Winchester’s house party in Norfolk. Said she was so nervous she could barely say her own name. She said he’s different; that being next to him and talking to him, it’s terrible.”

“Terrible?” the other girl said, her tone fascinated.

Edward frowned. Terrible? He was terrible? The way they spoke, it was as though they were telling a naughty ghost story. Did that make him the ghost?

“Because he’s so handsome. It was like he was seeing into her soul. She said it was as though he knew she liked him.”

“Did he?” the other girl asked with a gasp.

Edward wanted to turn around and say ‘no, he didn’t’. Explain that, in fact, he had no idea who they were talking about. He went to the Winchester’s house party every year, and he couldn’t remember meeting somebody named Anne. And he certainly had not been gazing into her eyes soulfully. Whatever that meant.

“I doubt it.”

He was just getting ready to move off, deciding he didn’t need to hear any more gossip about himself and how another debutante thought herself half in love with him when she said, “Anyway, she doesn’t like him anymore. She said he was cold. Came across as unfeeling and that Katherine, that ice princess he’s engaged to could have him. They deserve each other. Now she’s obsessed with that banker, the Swiss one who’s been funding the prince and his escapades.”

A banker? Some girl had decided she didn’t like him because she liked a banker instead? He sighed and did move away, parts of their conversation still ringing in his ears. He didn’t care. Not really. They deserve each other. It wasn’t a surprise that the girls did not like his fiancée; there was something rather distant about her. As though she were so busy in herself and thinking about how things related to her and her own perfection, that she didn’t have time for anybody else. Not people she met, were related to or perhaps would even marry.

And this gossiping stranger thought they deserved each other.

Edward spotted his fiancée on the dance floor dancing with some regimental hero, who’d undoubtedly done something very brave in some far-off land and come back with stories of killing natives armed with sticks. Very heroic[b1] , he thought with a scowl.

It would be his turn soon enough. When she looked at him, lifted her clear blue gaze from the man she was with and sought him out, it wasn’t to see if he disapproved or because she wanted to see him; it wasn’t because she couldn’t keep herself from looking at him because she cared for him. No, that would be…common. Vulgar, even. No, the reason his fiancée kept track of him was because she should.

When his dance came at the end of the evening, (and it was just one, sometimes two if she really wanted to show how ‘in love’ she was with him) she wanted to ensure he was where he was supposed to be. Not playing cards in the anteroom or drunk in a corner, but ready to squire her around the room for all to see.

Not that he ever did get drunk in corners or shirk his duty. But just in case. She didn’t trust anyone to do the correct thing except for herself. Just then, she flashed him a look, those arctic blue eyes colliding with his from across the room, ignoring the besotted man she danced with. Her new partner, the Earl of Chester, looked at Katherine as though she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

Edward supposed that was true. She was certainly the most graceful and beautiful woman in the room. His bride-to-be. Every doting mama told him how lucky he was; every man thumped him on the back and leered at her unpleasantly. Not only was she beautiful, she was rich as hell, blue-blooded as they came and the perfect choice for a duke.

And now, here he was, standing in a room full of people, watching them twirl around him and he suddenly felt sick, almost panicked at the idea that he was…here. Lucky enough to be alive when he dreaded today, tomorrow and every day into the future. Lucky enough to be alive when people who were better than him were dead.

Well, not people, just one—Helen. Was it a sign of just how awful he was that other people lived and died every day, hundreds of them, even thousands of them, and yet all he thought about was one? Just Helen. Who occupied his days with grief, and filled his nights with a desperate and peculiar sense of loneliness that was deeper than misguided lust.

Helen. She was unlucky. She was....

Edward looked down into his glass of champagne, watching the bubbles fizz to the surface. Bubbles rose. Dead bodies rose too sometimes. Although her body had never been found. An image of Helen on the last night he’d seen her came to him, replacing the world around him, overriding the noise and scents, the conversations and dancing, the happy people and even those who were here simply because they were expected to be.

For one pure moment, everything around him disappeared, and all he could see was Helen’s dead body floating to the surface of the water. The way it would move up, as if life and vitality had been holding her dozens of feet under, and when she gave that last breath, when she finally sucked in water and it exploded in her body and killed her, that, in his mind, was the moment she rose to the surface. Weightless, motionless, limbs relaxed, and dark hair spread around her like a cloud.

Was she still out there, floating in the water? The idea of it was so sharp that it pierced him. He felt the pain of it in his chest and stomach. It made his fingers clench and his breath exhale. The glass in his hand shook as his hand trembled.

---

This chick makes sense

Came across this video of Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) discussing writing, success and failure. It's fascinating and inspirational for anyone, author or no author. Enjoy!

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_success_failure_and_the_drive_to_keep_creating

I'm alive!

For anyone who has noticed a rather substantial gap between postings....I'm alive. You didn't notice, you say? Well, of course not, I'm prolific on blogging, facebooking and social media. Ahem.

As for what I've got going on...

RT in May. It's in New Orleans. Vampire central. I will be going to the Garden District and looking for Lestat. Everything vampire is set in New Orleans. Witches too. Off the top of my head...Kresley Cole's series is set there, Sookie visits, The Originals is there, Coven is there. The list goes on, I just ran out of head space.

I've also been working on a lot of different things and hope to have some of it out soon. A Lady Most Dangerous should be out by April 15. Hurray! There will be lots of giveaways, so if you have not signed up for the newsletter, let me direct your attention to the right of your screen :)

I've been reading a lot too. A Poison Study, Games of Command, Kate Pearce, Amy Lane...I'm all over the place and loving it!

Game of Thrones is coming back-- yeah and Walking Dead is almost over-- boo. Can't wait til friday-- Veronica Mars comes out and I will be there to see it! The show is available on netflix and is AWESOME. It's up there with Buffy. Yes, I said it. I met Jason Dohring at Comic-Con and he is so, so nice. I told him I was bummed things didn't take off for him. It looked promising with Moonlight. He seemed really happy about that and wrote that he loved me on my VM poster. Love you too, Jason. Love you too.