Anticipated Releases of 2016!

A rare photo of my stepsister Hope. She's not on social media (*gasp*) and so doesn't appear in my sharing. We became stepsisters as adults, though we knew each other in high school. (My mother and her father, however, did not know each other until MUCH later, so it's not nearly as weird as it sounds.) At any rate, as an only child for most of my life, I count myself privileged to have a sister now - especially one  I like so well. And not only because we share a deep affection for Starbucks.

(In a total aside, another friend of ours who grew up on the same block with us, now works at Starbucks corporate and invented the Flat White, which we also love. Great neighborhood, huh?)

This is the best part of the holidays for me - meeting up with the wonderful people who make my life whole, but who I only occasionally get to see.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Instead I'm to address this week's topic of 2016 Releases I'm excited about.

I'm a total fangirl of Grace Draven, both personally and professionally. Early 2016 promises to bring us the sequel to her brilliant novel, RADIANCE. Brishen and Ildiko's story will continue in EIDOLON and should be wonderful. I get to beta-read, so I'm feeling particularly grabby-handed about this one. Here's the preliminary blurb:

In a bid for more power, the Shadow Queen of Haradis has unleashed a malignant force into the world. Her son Brishen, younger prince of the Kai royal house, suddenly finds himself ruler of a kingdom blighted by a diseased darkness and on the brink of war. His human wife Ildiko must decide if she will give up the man she loves in order to secure his throne.

Three enemy kingdoms must unite to save each other, and a one-eyed, reluctant king must raise an army of the dead to defeat an army of the damned.

A tale of alliance and sacrifice.

I also love the writing team Ilona Andrews and have rabidly followed their Kate Daniels series from the very beginning. Their new Hidden Legacy series looks to be equally transporting. BURN FOR ME came out in October 2014 and we've been semi-patiently waiting for the sequel, WHITE HOT. Here's a fervent wish that 2016 will give it to us nao! I'd also love to see MAGIC BINDS, the next Kate Daniels release, but that looks unlikely and I wouldn't want to be TOO greedy.

I would be falsely modest if I pretended I wasn't excited about some of my own releases. The year will start out quietly release-wise for me, then we get a wham-bam triple-threat release slam!

April 26 will see the release of THE DEVIL'S DOORBELL. This is an anthology of some of my favorite writers of erotic fiction, all ruminating on the euphemism that the clitoris is the devil's doorbell. I've already read the stories from Anne Calhoun, Megan Hart and Megan Mulry. So much awesome there, people.

On May 1, Grace Draven and I plan to release our first duology, FOR CROWN AND KINGDOM. We don't *quite* have a cover yet, but the book will contain her story, THE KING OF HEL, and mine, THE CROWN OF THE QUEEN. Mine is the story of the aftermath of THE TALON OF THE HAWK, the final TWELVE KINGDOMS book, as so many have asked to have. Really excited for everyone to read it!

Finally, on May 31, THE PAGES OF THE MIND, finally will hit the shelves! This is Dafne the librarian's story, and launches the overall tale's next phase, THE UNCHARTED REALMS.

AN ORPHAN’S THRONE
 
Magic has broken free over the Twelve Kingdoms. The population is beset by shapeshifters and portents, landscapes that migrate, uncanny allies who are not quite human…and enemies eager to take advantage of the chaos.

Dafne Mailloux is no adventurer—she’s a librarian. But the High Queen trusts Dafne’s ability with languages, her way of winnowing the useful facts from a dusty scroll, and even more important, the subtlety and guile that three decades under the thumb of a tyrant taught her.

Dafne never thought to need those skills again. But she accepts her duty. Until her journey drops her into the arms of a barbarian king. He speaks no tongue she knows but that of power, yet he recognizes his captive as a valuable pawn. Dafne must submit to a wedding of alliance, becoming a prisoner-queen in a court she does not understand. If she is to save herself and her country, she will have to learn to read the heart of a wild stranger. And there are more secrets written there than even Dafne could suspect…

Should be an awesome year!

Conversations and Twelve Kingdoms Sneak Peeks

We're talking about dialogue this week in the Bordello.

Now, I spent the last couple of days doing stuff with LERA, my local RWA chapter, as it was the weekend of our biannual Enchanting the Page conference. Alexandra Sokoloff gave her excellent workshop on Screenwriting Tricks for Authors. So, my head is chalk full of ideas about structure and set pieces, not about dialogue at all.

Ironic, considering screenwriting is hugely about dialogue.

At any rate, dialogue is fun for me. I love revealing how the characters interact through dialogue. One really fun thing about writing THE TALON OF THE HAWK was transcribing the conversations between Ursula and Harlan, with all their banter and verbal fencing. Their love affair truly deepens first through conversation, largely because physical expression is out of the question.

(In the upcoming THE PAGES OF THE MIND, the situation is reversed, with conversation impossible. *That* was a bear to write!)

At any rate, I thought I'd share some of my favorite bits of Ursula and Harlan's ongoing conversation. Along with a few glimpses of as yet unpublished conversations. :D

* * *

“Addressing me as ‘Your Highness’ can become cumbersome. You may call me Princess Ursula.”

            “The former has two less syllables than the latter.” His face did not move from its stern lines, but I received the distinct impression of amusement from him—along with the recognition that he had surprised me indeed. He had to know that no one expected a man who looked like the side of a cliff to be articulate or clever.

            “As you wish—either is appropriate,” I replied, deliberately casting a bored-seeming eye over the assembly as I lent half an ear to Uorsin’s conversation.

            “No dispensation for a less formal accolade in conversation, then, Your Highness? What do your men call you?”

            I turned and met his eye, allowed a slight smile. “Captain.”

            He laughed, as resonant and booming as his voice. “Touché, Captain.”

            “Are we fencing, then?”

            “I witnessed your practice today, as you know, Your Highness. It would be interesting indeed to match blades with you.”

            “And yet we are allies, it seems, so such a scenario is unlikely to occur.”

            “You do not spar?”

            “Rarely. Only to teach.” Only with my Hawks. “Are you asking for lessons, Captain Harlan of the Vervaldr?”

            He grinned, and it belatedly occurred to me that the remark, which I’d intended as mildly insulting, had possibly sounded salacious.

   * * *

“You didn’t tell me I could call you Captain,” the mercenary said quietly, folding those massive arms to watch. 

                “Maybe I like it when you call me Your Highness.”

* * *

 

“You’re worried,” Harlan commented quietly to me after we’d ridden for a time, still unrested and fed only from our much-reduced provisions.

            I gave him a sidelong glance. “Being worried would imply that I lack confidence in our forces. I am…thinking.”

            He made a snorting sound. “Not much of a distinction. How’s the head?”

            “Fine.”

            “You’ve lost color. You need to rest.”

            “Thank you, Mother.”

            Harlan raised his brows at me. “Shall I cuddle you on my lap and sing you a baby-sparrow song?”

            My turn to snort. “What in the Twelve is a ‘baby-sparrow song’?”

            “Eh, not in the Twelve. I don’t know your word for it. A soothing tune, usually with a lot of silliness, that you sing to infants to make them sleep.”

            “A lullaby, we call it.”

            He nodded, once, filing that away. Truly his command of our Common Tongue was excellent. He showed flexibility in substituting phrases for words he couldn’t translate. An admirable skill. “Sing me one of your lullabies.”

            I had to laugh. “Danu, no. You do not want to hear me sing. Unless we’re attacked by wolves—then it might serve to drive them off.”

            “Perhaps sometime I’ll convince you to sing for me when we’re alone, then.”

            “Not happening. And before you ask, I mean both that we’ll ever be alone and that I’ll ever sing.”

*  *  *

from THE CROWN OF THE QUEEN

“Are you managing me, librarian?” Ursula asked mildly. A tone that didn’t fool me for a moment.

“Somebody needs to,” Harlan commented in the same tone.

“Don’t start with me.” She shot him a glare over my head. “Just when I was feeling all sentimental over missing you.”

He grinned at her. “I love you, too, my fierce hawk.”

*  *  *

from THE PAGES OF THE MIND

“Dafne is right,” Harlan inserted before Ursula could vent the angry words she had ready. “He’ll be looking for weakness. And I’m sorry to say it, but he’ll assume that of a woman.”

“Then he’ll be in for a surprise,” she snapped. 

“Yes. He will. I’m actually looking forward to witnessing that.”