Posts Tagged ‘jeri smith-ready’

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!! Happy pinching, and happy green-beer drinking…. and if you haven’t read the Fever series (by Karen Marie Moning), now’s a good time to start!!

In the meantime, here are the latest author tweets!

• Larissa Ione informs us that the release date on her upcoming book ” Sin Undone (The Demonica Series) ” has been moved up to August 24th (I’m reading Ecstasy Unveiled (Demonica, Book 4) right now, and Sin is a kick! Can’t wait to read her book!)
• Jeri Smith-Ready has blogged Logan Keeley’s St. Patrick’s Day playlist (and a little excerpt from her upcoming book Shade) and here is a link to her upcoming book signings.
• Alyssa Day is working on her “secret” project (which includes a terrifying, dangerous hero)  – sounds good!
• Richelle Mead announces on her blog that her latest book “Succubus Shadows (Georgina Kincaid, Book 5)” is early! Pre-order to get an autographed copy (see her instructions for this)! See…this is what I miss about paper books (well, that and the beautiful covers). I’m an e-book convert for sure, but I do miss some things…
• Signed books available at these book stores! Mark Henry’s “Happy Hour of the Damned” in DC and Georgetown Barnes and Noble and Shiloh Walker’s “Broken (Berkley Sensation)” at the Borders on Shelbyville Rd in Louisville, KY and Rachel Vincent left signed copies of her Shifters and Soul Screamers book in the Waldenbooks in Penn Square Mall in OKC! Go get ‘em!!
• Marjorie M Liu twitpic’d a picture of the cover of an upcoming novel “A Wild Light (Hunter Kiss, Book 3)” coming out July 27th 2010. She’s also currently in China and hoping to write about some “mermen”.
• Christina Dodd’s “In Bed with the Duke” is still on the New York Times Bestseller List! Congratulations!!
• Kerrelyn Sparks is also on the New York Times Best Seller list (#5) and #25 on USA Today! Congratulations!!
• Stephanie Tyler blogs the pictures of her new covers for Lie with Me: Shadow Force Series, Book 1 & Promises in the Dark: A Shadow Force Novel (expected release dates Oct 26th & Nov 23rd 2010)

More to follow as I find more cool tweets…

Want to read these tweets directly? Check out my Authors Who Tweet post, and make sure to follow them! It’s always good stuff!

Here are the author Twitter highlights of the day!

• Caridad Pineiro has provided a “free read” (an excerpt from her book Sins of the Flesh) – it’s pretty steamy so adults only!
• Shiloh Walker provides yet another snippet from her upcoming book “Broken”. I hear this book is AWESOME, and that the first one “Fragile” is awesome too.
• Richelle Mead is wrapping up a UK Tour and has blogged about it on her website (pictures too!!) – woops she just got back and tweeted that she fainted on the flight (says she’s fine and promises to blog about it later)
• Jeri Smith-Ready offers us a visual treat with a picture of a cover flat for her upcoming book (Bring on the Night – expected release date July 27th 2010) —-> can’t wait for this! Her characters are sexy and hilarious!
• Gena Showalter currently working on chapter seven of “Darkest Secret”
• Erin McCarthy has just finished a Christmas novella and will be starting “Evan’s book”
• Marta Acosta’s “Vampire Wire” blog has a cool guest blogger (author Lois Gresh) and a contest.
• Laurell K Hamilton just blogged! “Fever Dreams, Sex, and Zombies“
• Alyson Noel has just blogged too! All of our questions…answered (well…at least in regards to her books, anyway)
• Lauren Dane has great news! She is starting a new paranormal series, and Bound by Magic will be out in 2011, and “Cope’s book” is due out this November 2010 (entitled Inside Out – gorgeous cover!!).
• Rachel Vincent just twittered that “Shift (The Shifters, Book 5)” is out!! My release list indicates that it was scheduled for March 1st, but hey, a few days early is even better!
• Shiloh Walker also tentatively finished her latest book today, entitled “If You Hear Her” (which is the first in a new, romantic suspense, three part series). She expects them to be released late 2011 (back to back, one per month). One of her favorite characters in the book will be the hero in book#3. She also insists on teasing us with some lines from it. It worked!. I’m titillated. I want to read it!
• Sherrilyn Kenyon just confirmed that the Simi doll will have a bottle of BBQ Sauce and a Black Amex that will fit in her coffin purse. Ha! I can’t wait to see her.
• Kresley Cole announced that her latest book “Pleasure of a Dark Prince (Immortals After Dark)” is doing well! “…debuted @ 4 on NYT list & scored USA Today personal best–16″. That is the next book in my TBR pile. I can’t wait. I hear it’s great!
• Jeaniene Frost’s latest is also doing well (and I enjoyed it very much). “…First Drop of Crimson  still on the NYT at #10 and the USA Today at #53″. Congratulations ladies! Keep writing and I’ll certainly keep reading
• Nalini Singh gives us a sneak peak of her soon to be released novella “Whisper of Sin” (that will appear in the Burning Up anthology – release date Aug 3rd 2010)

More to follow as the day progresses…

Want to read these tweets directly? Check out my Authors Who Tweet post, and make sure to follow them! It’s always good stuff!

Today’s Twit-Bits

So, since I stalk Twitter for all the cool updates that authors let us in on, I thought I’d tempt you with some of these tidbits:

• Larissa Ione has presented the cover for her upcoming book called Sin Undone (part of her Demonica series) on her blog. It’s awesome!
• Shiloh Walker is blogging random snippets of her upcoming book “Broken” – check it out! (release date 03/02/2010)
• Jeri Smith-Ready is having a cool giveaway for a WVMP Lifeblood of Rock ‘n’ Roll dog t-shirt (to celebrate her mass market release of her Bad to the Bone book) – deadline to enter is March 1st – so get on it!
• Another book released today – Demon Possessed! Here’s an excerpt to tempt you, from Stacia Kane.
• Rachel Vincent has too many books, and will be drawing names for giveaways on Friday. Enter here. 
• Ann Aguirre is working on her latest Jax book (Killbox), and declared “Might be longest Jax yet.” Yay! I love long books!
• Sherrilyn Kenyon gave us a couple of sneak peaks for her upcoming “Simi” doll (and there will also be an “Ash” – much hotter than a Ken doll!) Both to be released in June. Check out the rest of her Twitpics for more cool stuff!
• Sherrilyn Kenyon also giving us tidbits on upcoming characters, and favorite quotes in her next book (Nick’s book) ”Infinity”, and each Chronicles of Nick book will span one year of his life: She says: “The maturity level of the books will grow as he does”
• Anya Bast having a good (and easy) time writing her latest “JADED”
• Alyssa Day also gives us a sneak peak to “Atlantis Redeemed” (coming out March 2nd 2010). Check out her excerpt of when Brennan returns:

     ——-> HOT!

More to follow as the day progresses…

Want to read these tweets directly? Check out my Authors Who Tweet post, and make sure to follow them! It’s always good stuff!

I purchased this book at the RT Convention book fair, (after learning about it from the author who was on the “The Good, The Bad and the Paranormal: Heroines Kicking-Ass Across Urban Fantasy Worlds” panel). It sounded really great, and she had a 2nd book in the series that was going to be released shortly (it is actually out now, so I will be reading that one soon – “Bad to the Bone”).

I just finished it yesterday, and found it extremely entertaining. There were many “chuckle-worthy” moments.

Here’s one (where the main character, Ciara, thinks she is being followed at night):

The other side of the parking lot lies in shadow, and that’s where I look-muscles frozen, eyes darting, like a baby rabbit hoping the predator won’t see me if I just stand still.

Yeah, right. Anyone stalking me might think I’ve been replaced by a mannequin. Good strategy.

Her heroine, Ciara (pronounced Keer-ah), despite being somewhat jaded (mostly about herself), is likeable, and a little vulnerable. She is street-savvy, witty, and due to her upbringing, quite reluctant to emotionally connect to anyone. 

Her male interest, Shane (a vampire), reminds me of friends I hung out with back in the “grunge” days. Sweet and gentle, introspective and a little moody. He finds solace in the music that he loves.

Ciara goes to college, and pays her tuition by scamming unsuspecting people out of money. Following her latest con that goes awry, she attempts to abandon her con-artist ways, and gets a job at a local radio station as an intern.  After meeting the DJ’s,

“What do you guys think?” David says. “Should we hire her?”

They examine me like I’m a cow at a 4-H auction. I try not to moo.

and reading through the preliminary “employee” handbooks, she learns that the DJ’s (who are only “on-air” at night) are all vampires (which of course, she thinks is ridiculous, and decides that the whole place is either playing a joke on her, or they’re collectively crazy).

She discovers the truth, however, after she invites one of the DJ’s (Shane) home with her one evening, and he bites her during an intimate interlude (his gentle shy nature suddenly melds into a more predatory air).

“Please…” Shane crawls up the bed over my legs. “It’s so good, the way you taste when you-”

“No!” I whack him hard across the face.

In a pounce faster than I can see, he grabs my arms and pins me to the bed beneath him.

His face hovers an inch from mine, jaw trembling and nostrils flaring. “That. Doesn’t. Help.”

I actually felt her fear in this part, her terror at suddenly being alone with him and faced with the realization that she was prey, and he was simply, momentarily, driven by his instinctual nature. The shy Shane that she was comfortable with was gone, and was replaced by something that she thought she didn’t believe in. She could no longer deny the obvious, while his fangs dripped blood onto her face.

Fear not! Shane redeems himself over and over throughout the novel.

“Forgive me,” he says.

I open my mouth to reply, but he cuts me off.

“Not now.” He shoves the tissue in his pocket. “Later, when I deserve it.”

He was a character that I was quite easily enchanted by. I found one moment actually rivaled a certain “meadow scene” found in another popular vampire romance book

Here is a moment that made me laugh. Ciara comes home with her best friend Lori, and Shane is already there waiting for her (a little creepy, I know, but this scene is so funny, you forget the rest). She tries to figure out how to get him to leave:

Finally I find what I’m looking for, behind an unopened container of fennel seed. I climb off the counter, clutching the little plastic jar.

“Be right back,” I tell Lori as I blur past her.

In my room I shut the door and advance on Shane, who’s sitting among the CDs again.

“Get out!” I twist off the red cap and hurl the contents of the jar at him.

He putters and spits, then wipes his moth. “What the-salt? I’m a vampire, not a slug.”

“Keep your voice down. It’s garlic salt.”

“It is?” He brushes the stuff out of his hair and sniffs his sleeve. “How old is that jar?”

Despite her obvious apprehension to continue working there, she persists with her employment.

Over time, Ciara learns of why the radio station exists, who these vampires are personally, and what issues they are truly up against.

She (and her colleagues) are faced with multiple enemies, (a few of a comical nature), while others are dangerously ruthless, and even some that are closer to home than she realizes.

Her eventual passage into personal growth, and acceptance helps balance the wrongs she has committed in her past.  By incorporating her crafty ways with her new found sense of humanity (strangely enough it is the vampires that bring it out in her), the “Wicked Game” begins!

It was early Friday afternoon, and I managed to get off of work. It was my intention to go to the Saturday bookfair that the RT convention would be holding, however, I was hoping to partake in Friday’s activities as well. While I did arrive there late in the afternoon (3:25pm to be exact), there were still a couple of workshops and events that I could attend, before the highly anticipated “Vampire’s Ball” (a yearly party thrown by Heather Graham and her crew). The RT Staff was extremely accommodating, and ushered me into the workshop that I was hoping to arrive in time for.

The first thing I was able to sit in on, was “The Good, The Bad and the Paranormal: Heroines Kicking-Ass Across Urban Fantasy Worlds”. Panelists included Ilona Andrews, Jeaniene Frost, Mark Del Franco, Rachel Vincent and Jeri Smith-Ready. Since I was a huge fan of Ms. Frosts series (Catherine, aka “Cat” was one of the heroines the panelists discussed), I was anxious to hear about the author’s approach to writing such a character.

Subjects that were discussed included how the authors managed to keep the strong and assertive male characters in balance with the equally dominant female characters. Surprisingly, Jeaniene’s response was that in the next novel, the balance would waver, as “Bones” was going to get a run for his money with “Cat” when he realizes that she will forever be headstrong.

Another subject discussed was how a heroine’s past (and family upbringing) influenced her decisions, and possibly, her “character flaws”. I found an interesting comment that stuck with me, in regards to how, throughout a series, a character could learn through experiences, to dispel her past prejudices. However, even though one character flaw could be alleviated, another could soon take it’s place. The characters would never be perfect, and would continuously grow to learn, and yet still make mistakes.

I was introduced to a few series that I am quite interested in reading. There is a series by Rachel Vincent (The Shifters Series) that is about a female werewolf, who is isolated within her pact. Females are greatly protected due to their ability to bear future pact members. I got the impression, from the author’s perspective on this panel, that the main heroin in this series is resistant to the close-knit yet smothering environment she was raised in, and decides to venture out on her own.

Another series that I picked up over the weekend included a book by Jeri Smith-Ready. This one is about a human female, who was raised by bamboozling, crooked parents, and herself, as an adult is a recovering “con-artist” (however, not a violent one, as per Jeri, as violent con artists are criminals, and the heroin in this series, does not consider herself a criminal). She realizes that her entourage includes Vampires, and of course, one particular Male Vamp becomes a focus in this story.

Overall, the workshop was enlightening, and it was fun to see how the different authors related to each other in the creation of their characters.

Here are some great pics of the event:

Rachel Vincent, Jeaniene Frost & Jeri Smith-Ready

Rachel Vincent & Jeaniene Frost signing books for attendees

Jeaniene Frost and Jeri-Smith Ready (Jeri made a funny comment about females and Vampires)

Ilona Andrews & Mark Del Franco