Long Island Athanate – second last installment

This post was supposed to get the story to the end, but this scene jus’ growed and growed. So, okay, this is the second last installment of the Long Island Athanate. To come, there’s the scene that you’d expect from the last sentences of this chapter, then there’s an epilogue.

I have had some feedback in the comments, but not as many people comment as actually visit these posts…

So… some prompts. Please comment in response:
Are you enjoying the story?
Has any of it caught you by surprise?
Do you like the present tense mode of telling a story?
Do you like the split point of view, switching between Julius and Elodie?
What is the story lacking?

Or ask any questions brought up by this installment / the whole story.

I’ll post a link to a downloadable word document in the comments if you prefer to read that way.

 

< * * * >

Thank you for visiting one of the posts from Change in Regime. This novella is now available on Amazon, and to also make it available on Kindle Unlimited, I have to remove these posts from my blog.

Anyway, here is the cover copy and link:

Like an electric current, arcing from ear to ear through the New York underworld, the word comes; he’s here. The city has a new Master of vampires, House Altau, and the existing, unaffiliated community is now facing a sentence of death.

The storm builds, and one of the leaders of that community, Livia or Julius, must chose to be the lightning conductor to save the rest from destruction. But will that be an acceptable sacrifice to Altau?

And if so, which one of them will it be?

 

Long Island Athanate – the Warder’s Court

Quick roundup first.

Vampires of the Caribbean went up to #1 in the Zon for anthologies in UF. Thank you all! I hope you liked Enzili, and I would love to get your feedback in reviews (Amazon or Goodreads) or messages here, Facebook or to the usual email.

Angel Stakes audiobook – I’m still waiting for the *last* audio file before I can press the button to send everything into ACX/Audible’s internal processing. The technical problems with the studio (not with our actual recording) have been terrible on this project, but the actual work is the best yet that Julia has done. This is an *awesome* audiobook, I’m just so frustrated that unrelated bits keep delaying it.

Writing progress on Bian’s Tale and Bite Back 6 (Inner Game? Inside Straight?) – slow. This was a disrupted week, what with the book launch, my wife’s birthday and the first episode of Iron Fist airing. I really enjoyed Iron Fist Ep1. I was always going to love seeing Jess as Colleen Wing, of course, but I actually thought the whole episode was very well done.

Long Island Athanate

I really have to reorganise the blog to make this episodic story easier to access. I will be publishing this as a novella once it’s complete. There are a couple more chapters to run…

I started this at what became chapter 1 as an unrelated scene with characters that don’t appear in the Bite Back series, but affected by what was going on in the Athanate world. It was just a little Christmas present for readers. It was popular, so I wrote another scene… Then I started to put it together with some doodles that I wrote on my visit to Brooklyn last fall. I thought it should be entirely stand-alone, then I realised that there’s too much back-story if I did that. I only write these scenes on Friday evening or Saturday, so there’s a limit to the planning and plotting and ‘crafting’ of it. And so on. Anyway, I hope you’re still enjoying it, and it serves to keep my mind fresh and my writing skills exercised, so I’ll continue posting novellas in episodes on this blog. We’ll have to see what comes next; there was no definitive preference expressed by lots of readers for what I should write next in this fashion. Maybe I’ll do a little survey. Tell me what you individually want, and we’ll see if there’s a consensus…

< * * * >

Thank you for visiting one of the posts from Change in Regime. This novella is now available on Amazon, and to also make it available on Kindle Unlimited, I have to remove these posts from my blog.

Anyway, here is the cover copy and link:

Like an electric current, arcing from ear to ear through the New York underworld, the word comes; he’s here. The city has a new Master of vampires, House Altau, and the existing, unaffiliated community is now facing a sentence of death.

The storm builds, and one of the leaders of that community, Livia or Julius, must chose to be the lightning conductor to save the rest from destruction. But will that be an acceptable sacrifice to Altau?

And if so, which one of them will it be?

 

 

Teaser first chapter of Enzili

Debra Dunbar and I exchange messages every now and then, y’know: S&M clubs, vampire hangouts, getting away with murder, how to hide bodies, etc. Usual writer’s stuff.

Last year we got to talking about vampires in the Caribbean. She had a short story that filled in some early history of one of her characters. We talked about soucriants (local vamps), and I said I’d write something in that setting if she put together an anthology. I sketched a couple of ideas in my notebook.

Didn’t think anything more about it until she actually went ahead and put together a group!

I came up with a final idea quite quickly. It’s set in the 1790s on the island of St. Mark’s, in the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean. It incorporates vampires, slavery, voodou, the position of women in that era, politics, the sugar industry, the British class system and emerging technology!

The name of my story, ‘Enzili’, refers to the voodou goddess of love and women, who is also the goddess of witches.

It was hugely enjoyable to write. I used the opportunity to experiment with 3^rd person narrative, two points of view and British historical dialogue, all of which I hope gives it a very different feel from Amber in the Bite Back series and Amanda in the Outsiders series.

It was even fun to have to rein myself in—yes, yes, I know Amber would just punch him in the face, but Lady Margaret can’t do that!

‘Vampires of the Caribbean’ was a success and, as planned, was withdrawn for each author to use their story in other ways. My story, ‘Enzili’, is now available as a novella on Amazon.

(There was a sample here of chapter 1, but that potentially gets me in trouble with Amazon, so I’ve taken it down. You can still get a sample from Amazon.)

 

 

 

Audiobook competition – last day!

LAST DAY FOR FREE AUDIOBOOK!

Like audiobooks? Like Urban Fantasy?

Get your mouse over to the Urban Fantasy Audiobook Giveaway at:

http://audiobookaccess.com/giveaways/urban-fantasy-audiobook-giveaway-2/

There will be 24 winners who will each get one audiobook from this list:

The Baine Chronicles Books 1-3 – written by Jasmine Walt and narrated by Laurel Schroeder

Sleight of Hand – written by Mark Henwick and narrated by Kimberly Henrie

The Devil’s Fool – written by Rachel McClellan and narrated by Veronica Fox

Dead Man – written by Domino Finn and narrated by Neil Hellegers

Southern Bound – written by Stuart Jaffe and narrated by Stuart Jaffe

Shifter Legacies Special Edition – written by Mark E. Cooper and narrated by Mikael Naramore

One lucky winner will get all 6!

And everyone who enters gets a copy of this eBook:

The Catalyst – C.M. Raymond & L.E. Barbant

If you get a friend to enter, you get another 3 goes.

 

 

 

Long Island Athanate – New episode

I’m going to be making some promotional postings over the weekend, so I decided this episode should go out today. I actually wanted to put out this and the next episode together to stop it feeling as if we’re balancing on the cliff edge for too long, but there are not enough hours in the day.

If you’ve seen my Facebook page or the Bite Back one, you’ll know that the immensely positive critical reaction to my daughter’s role in Iron Fist has been the dominant news of the week. 🙂 The only other thing I have to report is that Angel Stakes audiobook has been delayed again by studio problems. I should have something to check by next week. If not, I can only keep you posted.

I need to rework this blog page to make the episodes easier to access!

< * * * >

Thank you for visiting one of the posts from Change in Regime. This novella is now available on Amazon, and to also make it available on Kindle Unlimited, I have to remove these posts from my blog.

Anyway, here is the cover copy and link:

Like an electric current, arcing from ear to ear through the New York underworld, the word comes; he’s here. The city has a new Master of vampires, House Altau, and the existing, unaffiliated community is now facing a sentence of death.

The storm builds, and one of the leaders of that community, Livia or Julius, must chose to be the lightning conductor to save the rest from destruction. But will that be an acceptable sacrifice to Altau?

And if so, which one of them will it be?

 

News and another episode in Long Island

Long Island Athanate – Julius, Livia and Elodie

This week’s new chapter on the Long Island Athanate is at the bottom of the post.

I got into this episodic novella completely unintentionally. It gets written as a ‘relaxation’ from the main books, so it isn’t holding me up. Are you enjoying it? What if, after this one, I did something completely different? Like Space Opera? Or the African steampunk I showed you a chapter of? Talk time, folks. This is your forum.
Angel Stakes audiobook

Sorry, still waiting on corrections – delay at the studio.
Short story in the anthology Vampires of the Caribbean

I have written a story called Enzili, featuring Athanate and set in 1790s on the island of St. Marks. The anthology contains 10 stories, costs 99c and it’s available for pre-order NOW:

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XCK41HV
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XCK41HV
Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B06XCK41HV/
Amazon DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B06XCK41HV/
Nook: http://bit.ly/2me7WAX
iBook: http://apple.co/2m8GHY1
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2lU3OoN
Google Play: http://bit.ly/2lyZSXQ

Release day: 15th March.
Audiobook competition!

Meanwhile, if you enjoy Urban Fantasy audiobooks, there’s a promotion on for these books:

The Baine Chronicles Books 1-3 – written by Jasmine Walt and narrated by Laurel Schroeder
Sleight of Hand – written by Mark Henwick and narrated by Kimberly Henrie
The Devil’s Fool – written by Rachel McClellan and narrated by Veronica Fox
Dead Man – written by Domino Finn and narrated by Neil Hellegers
Southern Bound – written by Stuart Jaffe and narrated by Stuart Jaffe
Shifter Legacies Special Edition – written by Mark E. Cooper and narrated by Mikael Naramore

First prize is all 6 audiobooks and an ebook (The Catalyst – C.M. Raymond & L.E. Barbant), and 23 other winners get an audiobook.

You get an extra 3 entries to the promotion if you introduce a friend!

More details on the site: http://www.audiobookaccess.com/uf2
Progress on Bian’s Tale

Slow progress this week, but section 3 of 5 is nearly there.

Progress on Bite Back 6

Slow. Taking a back seat to Bian’s Tale at the moment.

< * * * >

Thank you for visiting one of the posts from Change in Regime. This novella is now available on Amazon, and to also make it available on Kindle Unlimited, I have to remove these posts from my blog.

Anyway, here is the cover copy and link:

Like an electric current, arcing from ear to ear through the New York underworld, the word comes; he’s here. The city has a new Master of vampires, House Altau, and the existing, unaffiliated community is now facing a sentence of death.

The storm builds, and one of the leaders of that community, Livia or Julius, must chose to be the lightning conductor to save the rest from destruction. But will that be an acceptable sacrifice to Altau?

And if so, which one of them will it be?