$1.99 Superpower Special!

For a limited time, both TEMPEST and CHIMERA (MetaWars 3 & 4) are discounted to $1.99 for Kindle! So if you haven't picked them, it's a great time to do so. Just click on the cover for a link.

My apologies for my fellow die-hard Nook users (and Kobo users), but the discount is only on Kindle.

PS--because Blogger is weird, you have to toggle your mouse over the bottom portion of the Tempest cover to find the link. Don't ask....

A Couple of Links

I said I'd be back with a few links to some of the guest posts floating around out there. Check them out and leave them a little love in the form of a comment.

A discussion of villain dynamics in the MetaWars world is up over at CMash Reads.

This possibility of change was one of the big building blocks of TEMPEST.  I used this book to really explore the hero/villain dynamic of the MetaWars world. 

"The Family You Make" is over at Tote Bags 'n' Blogs.

But families are more than simple biology.  They the people you choose to love and to allow into your life.  They laugh with you, cry with you, and they'll bury a body for you (metaphorically, in most cases, but you never know….).   I appreciate "made families" in real life, but I truly enjoy exploring those dynamics in fiction—movies, television, and books.

I'm participating in the Fantastic Fables event at Dark Faerie Tales. My story is a bit of a MetaWars take on Hansel and Gretel, starring Ethan and Marco, called "Cookie Monster."

We weren’t Hansel and Gretel traipsing through the woods, so I had no reason to fear whatever was behind the gingerbread door, but that didn’t mean I was going to walk up to it and invite myself into trouble.  I attracted injuries like a human lodestone.

An interview at Bibliophilic Book Blog.

Q. What is the hardest part of writing for you?

Telling myself that it's okay to stop and walk away for a while.

 

Tempest: Chapter One Teaser

With TEMPEST releasing in only two days, I was going to whet your appetite with all of Chapter One--until I realized that Chapter One is, like, twenty-five pages. That's a lot of text for a blog post, so instead I present the first scene in Chapter One.  And if you like what you see, don't forget to buy TEMPEST on Monday from Amazon, BN, Kobo, and other online retailers!

###

One

West Hollywood

           

"Greens are such a pain in the ass.”

 I hadn’t intended my comment to come out loud enough for anyone to overhear, especially my boss and partner for the night, Teresa West, but she heard it anyway and gave me a quelling glare from her side of the pile of rubble we were crouching behind. I didn’t take the words back, though. My personal ass was in quite a bit of its own pain after a telekinetic blast from the aforementioned Green knocked me onto it about two minutes ago. “Green” was our chosen word for young, untrained Metas who thought it was cool to use their newly discovered powers to break the law.

Such as the telekinetic Green attempting to rob West Hollywood’s only branch of the Second National Bank of California. Most average bank robbers go in during the day, when a teller can hand over the cash. Our bank robber thought she was clever by going in at three in the morning to tear out a few walls.

Fortunately for us, she wasn’t clever enough to test her newfound powers before the robbery, or she’d have known they didn’t actually work on steel. She’d spent so much time fighting to open the vault, LAPD had showed up—then they decided to call us in to deal with the mess. As the leader of our band of mismatched former Rangers, Teresa accepted the job and then promptly assigned herself.  Her Meta ability lets her shoot awesome purple balls of energy, capable of annihilating walls, out of her fingers, as well as create the occasional force field. She volunteered me because I can control the wind. Ethan “Tempest” Swift at your service. Among other handy things, I can stop the wind from moving, blast it out, spiral it like a drill, and use it to fly.

The bank robber—whom we hadn’t actually seen yet, but whose screams of frustration had a decidedly female pitch—was not happy when we appeared on the scene . My pained ass and the pile of rubble serving as our shield against her tantrum (rubble that used to be part of the building across the street from the bank) were proof.

“She’s terrified,” Teresa said.

“That tends to happen when you rob a bank and the cops show up,” I replied with a heaping dose of sarcasm.

Teresa has a thing about helping Metas. All Metas, but especially the Greens. I love her to pieces, but most days I just don’t get her ability to see the best in people—especially after all the shit we’ve been through at the hands of regular, non-Meta kinds of people.

I peeked over the top of our debris pile. The entire front of the bank was missing, giving us a clear view of a counter and several shattered teller windows. The vault was somewhere in the back. North La Cienega Boulevard was mostly clear, with a cop car parked at each end of the block to keep gawkers away. Crowd control was about the only thing cops were useful for in Meta-related situations, anyway.

My back twinged and I shifted my weight onto my left knee. “Look, I have an idea to get her out and keep her from smashing anything else with her temper,” I said.

“Do tell.”

“Ever heard of the Tasmanian Devil?”

“The animal?”

“Old cartoon character.”

Her eyebrows furrowed and she opened her mouth to say something, then shut it. Understanding smoothed out the lines on her forehead. She held out her right hand, palm up. A hazy purple orb formed there, the kind of fuzzy powerball she used to knock people around without causing serious damage. “Just tell me when,” she said.

With the boss’s vote of confidence, I stood up. Yes, it made me a big freaking target, but oh well. I had a better view of the bank and the actual volume of air inside. I moved the air with ease, grabbing it hard and spinning it in a tight, formed cyclone that sent paper, glass, and other small debris inside the bank zinging away. The cyclone danced toward the back of the bank, and I closed my eyes, waiting for the change in pressure that signaled I’d caught something.

Adrenaline pulsed into my blood, as much from the thrill of using my powers as from being made a target, standing in the open like that. Any idiot with a gun and a strong belief in Governor Martin Winstead’s anti-Meta propaganda could get frisky and try to take us out. Hell, some of the cops had looked ready to take a pop at us the instant we showed up at the scene, like we were there to assist the bank robber instead of stop her.

A little extra wind fluttered around me, but the majority of it had created a person-sized tornado inside the bank—and a sharp snap against my control told me that the Green was fighting back. Awareness prickled the skin on the back of my neck. I zeroed in on the opposing force and shoved right back, tightening the cyclone, whipping the air around faster, harder.

Ever stuck your hand out the window of a speeding car just to feel the wind rushing around your fingers? Imagine that all over your body, slamming against your face, numbing your skin. The telekinetic pushback felt like that.

Easiest way to end this would be to send my cyclone into the nearest wall and use the shrapnel cloud to knock the bank robber silly. Two major problems with the easy way: one, I’d get my ass reamed (and not in the fun way) by Teresa if I intentionally injured the Green when avoiding it was still possible; and two, causing unnecessary property damage was near the top of our To Don’t list.

So no knocking out a wall to knock out the latest Meta-powered felon of America. Not tonight.

I pulled more air into the bank and into the volume of the cyclone. The buildings around the bank creaked under the pressure changes. If I didn’t end this soon, a wall somewhere was coming down in the next sixty seconds.

“Tempest?”

I ignored Teresa’s impatient use of my code name and shoved everything I had into getting that cyclone moving. The teller counter crumpled (not my fault) and pieces got sucked into the cyclone (by accident). Trying to expel them would take too much of my concentration, so I tempted Teresa’s wrath and broke through the telekinetic’s resistance with my cyclone—at the exact same moment, a piece of desk, aimed right at my head, zoomed out of the bank.

 The desk exploded in a shower of shrapnel and purple sparks.

Note to self: Thank Teresa.

The pressure inside my air cyclone had changed now that the Green was stuck inside it, probably getting the snot smacked out of her by all the crap she’d made me suck up like the world’s strongest vacuum cleaner. I drew the cyclone out of the bank, which ripped up the tiled floor and sent pieces sailing into the street. The thick swirl of gray and brown whipped the air, and my intense hold on it sent a tremor down my spine.

“Anytime,” I said, nearly shouting to be heard over the roar of my own powers.

“Now!” Teresa said.

I dropped the wind completely and fell to my knees, my entire body shivering from the stress of holding the cyclone for so long. The debris collapsed to the ground just outside the bank, and the black-clad figure trapped inside teetered on her feet for a split second—then a purple orb knocked her backward, into the wall of the building next door, shattering it with amazing ease. The Green stayed down.

The rest of the Second National Bank of California collapsed with a long, thunderous groan.

As the dust settled, I looked up at Teresa and grimaced. “Oops?”

“Big fucking oops,” she replied. She shook her head, her expression as sad as it was frustrated. “The mayor’s going to have a field day with this.”

Of that I had no doubt. The mayor of Los Angeles, Christina Ainsworth, tolerated our presence in her city the way a homeowner tolerates a nearby hornet’s nest—by ignoring us until we made too much noise, and then attacking without mercy. And with her favorite presidential candidate, Governor Winstead, in town stumping for votes on his anti-Meta platform and due to give a public press conference tomorrow afternoon, we were screwed.

Sometimes trying to help people came back to bite you.

And not in the fun way.

---

Housekeeping and Other Sundries

Wow.  I can't believe it's been almost two months since my last blog post.  I suppose the main reason for that is I haven't had much to report on, or anything truly interesting to say.  So I do apologize to folks who've been checking in for something.

With TEMPEST's release only six days away, you'll probably see me popping up on various blogs, doing interviews and guest posts. I'll link back when things go live.  Right now I have a post up at My World....in Words and Pages as part of their Mythical Monday Meme.  I talk "Of Heroes and Titans" and how mythology helped create the MetaWars world.

CHIMERA (MetaWars #4, aka Renee's book) is up for pre-order!

I'm excited to announce that I'll be a Featured Author at Authors After Dark: Charlotte in 2014. I had so much fun at AAD last year, and I'm sad to miss it this year (but for a very good reason, as my BFF is getting married at the same time). Mistress of Ceremonies is Alexandra Ivy, who I had the pleasure of meeting in New Orleans. I can't wait!

Last, but certainly not least, is the ReDeus anthology. I've mentioned a few times that I'll have a story in this collection, put out by my friends at Crazy8Press.  The official title is ReDeus: Beyond Borders, and there's a nifty little post over at the Crazy8 Blog.  The cover is absolutely gorgeous, and the anthology will debut this year at Balticon.

Tempest: Snippet Three

Two more months until TEMPEST is unleashed!  And seeing as how I'm crazy eager to share this book with you guys, I'm posting another snippet. More Ethan and Aaron banter for your general amusement. Back from another long day in Manhattan, they're winding down in their temporary quarters and Ethan's snark is on full-force.

Enjoy!

####

[Aaron] sat down in the lawn chair he’d claimed for himself and stretched his legs out in front of him. “You gave quite the performance at dinner.”

            “That’s me, always eager to entertain.”

            He quirked an eyebrow at my tone. “You were good with Muriel. And her mom was right. Those kids need to believe in a better future.”

            “We can’t promise that to them.”

            “You’re right. Does that mean we shouldn’t try?”

            “Of course not. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

            “I’m just trying to understand you, pal.”

            I rolled my eyes. “I’m not that complicated.”

            “Yeah, you are.” He didn’t add to the statement, though. “It’s funny.”

            “What?”

            Aaron shook his head lightly. “It’s just that this is the first time I’ve ever really given kids much thought.”

            “King or Aaron?”

            “Both. Not that it matters, I guess, since my Recombinant side makes procreation impossible.”

            I blinked, surprised by the matter-of-fact way he said that. “Does it bother you?”

            “Right this moment? No. Can’t say it won’t bother me in the future, though. How about you?”

            “No, your inability to have kids doesn’t bother me.”

            Aaron snorted laughter, sounding genuinely amused by my smart-ass remark. “I mean, you’re . . . older. Haven’t you ever wanted to settle down and raise a family?”

            Hard as it might be to believe, that was the first time anyone in my life had ever asked me that question. Probably because I’d avoided romantic relationships my entire adult life, and given my injury record so far this year, my odds of making it past thirty were pretty slim. No sane person wanted a boyfriend whose job had such a high mortality rate, much less a husband.

            “Not really,” I said when I realized Aaron was waiting for an actual answer. “Even before my powers came back, I never had a stable enough life to consider it.”

            “What about now?”

            “You call this stable? I have literally almost died twice in the last eight months. And before that—” I snapped my mouth shut.

            “Before that what?”

            “Nothing.”

            Aaron tilted his head to the side, an annoying habit he had, and grinned. “You have a lot of stories tucked away that I think I’d like to hear one day.”

            “Fat chance. Even my friends haven’t heard those stories.”

            “Ouch.” He pressed a hand to his heart, pretending to be wounded. “So what do I have to do to earn the dubious honor of being your friend?”

            The genuine and curious smile he gave me cut all my retorts off at the knees. I floundered for an answer, annoyed at my temporary brain stutter. And why? Over a smile?

            I needed to get laid. Badly.

            “I’m going to take a shower,” I said in lieu of a response. I hauled my tired carcass off the air mattress and headed for the bathroom.

            “So, what? No kids then?” Aaron said.

            I paused in the doorway and turned halfway around. “Why? You looking to get pregnant?” Good, Sarcasm Brain, welcome back.

            He laughed again, long and loud, Adam’s apple bobbing . . . Not again! I darted inside the bathroom and shut the door, cutting myself off from the sight of Aaron and his infectious laughter. When the hell had I stopped seeing him as a deadly Changeling that I barely tolerated and started seeing him as a man?

Tempest: Second Snippet

We're down to about three and a half months until TEMPEST releases from Pocket Star, and even though I still don't have a cover to show off, I want to throw out another snippet for your reading pleasure.

This is from Chapter Six. Ethan Swift and Aaron Scott have returned to Simon Hewitt's apartment from their first day visiting the Manhattan Island prison, and Ethan is reporting to Teresa via phone.

Enjoy!

#

The apartment door opened and Aaron stepped inside with two small plates. Something fluffy and vaguely dessert-like was piled on each. The moment he closed the door behind him, he dropped “Scott” completely in favor of his own face. He held up one plate. I nodded, then pointed at the floor. He put a plate down next to my chair, and I got a whiff of sweetness and berries. It looked like some kind of pudding or pie or something. Aaron sank into the other chair and scooped up a big mouthful from his own plate.

            “So how’s Aaron? Behaving?” Teresa asked.

            I caught my laugh and it turned into an abbreviated snort. Speak of the devil, he’s already appeared. “So far,” I said. “The only person who questioned his disguise was Caleb.”

            Teresa laughed softly. Aaron flashed me a curious look over a mouthful of dessert, and I chose not to tell him he had whipped cream on his nose.

            “Leave it to Caleb,” she said. “How’s he?”

            “Something gives me the impression that he’ll be the leader of us all in twenty years. That kid’s too smart for his own good.”

            “Leader of all Metas?”

            “I was thinking the country.”

            “Interesting premonition. Where’d this psychic streak come from?”

            “Maybe Simon’s rubbing off on me.”

            Aaron choked on his food, and I shot him a dirty look.

            “What was that?” Teresa asked.

            “Someone who needs to learn to chew properly,” I said. 

            “Uh- huh.” Her voice changed when she asked, “Tell me the truth, Ethan?”

            “About what?”

            “How are you? After going back to Central Park?”

            A flood of emotion filled my chest and I pressed a hand over my heart, like that could stop it. Blood roared in my ears. I didn’t want to relive everything I’d felt stepping off the copter for the first time. Looking Keene in the eyes and knowing what he’d done. Finding a small piece of paradise in a ruined, rotting city.

            Aaron, the nosy bastard, had stopped eating and was staring at me like I might spontaneously combust. I waved him off, then stood. Crossed to the apartment’s barred window and looked out over a silent street. 

            “Ethan?” Teresa asked.

            “Can I get back to you on that?” I said.

Happy New Year!

I have to admit, I'm kind of glad to see 2013 arrive. 2012 was a weird (and somewhat frustrating) year for me, and the Mayans can have it. Although 2012 did give us "The Avengers," so there were a few bright spots.

Looking into 2013, I have two digital releases coming up.  TEMPEST (MetaWars 3) releases April 22, and I hope to have some cover art soon. CHIMERA (MetaWars 4) follows in November (and if you ever wondered what it was like in Renee "Flex" Duvall's mind, it's a scary, scary place). I also have two short stories in anthologies.  First is the CARNIEPUNK anthology that releases from Pocket in print and digital on July 30. The second is part of a shared-world called ReDeus, and the anthology will be out sometime in the spring.

As for upcoming projects, I have no real news. I'm still plugging away at the fifth Dreg City book, and I still hope to self-publish it this year.  I have other proposals out, so keep your fingers crossed.

Other than that, here's a shout-out to my best friend who's GETTING MARRIED THIS YEAR! Woot!

Tempest Snippet

It's hard to believe that it's October, and that Halloween is almost here. We're already putting out Christmas items at the day job. Yikes!

On the plus side, that means only about six months until TEMPEST is released!  Since that's pretty awesome, I thought I'd tease y'all with a snippet. This is Ethan "Tempest" Swift's story (as if the title didn't give that away), and the scene I chose is from Chapter Four.  Ethan and Aaron Scott (remember him from CHANGELING?) are on a private jet, heading toward New York City, to help Simon Hewitt with a little job involving the folks still living in the Manhattan Island prison--and Ethan has a very personal reason for volunteering.

Enjoy!

***

"We're going to be working together for at least the next three days, so at some point you're going to have to talk to me," Aaron said. He had an annoying ability to sound both condescending and completely reasonable in the exact same sentence.

 Which, naturally, made me feel about five years old. I hadn't ignored him for the last three hours on purpose. I simply didn't have anything to say in the way of polite conversation. The questions I wanted to ask—What's it like for your brother sharing space with my kind-of-best friend? How can Marco learn to cope with having all that extra noise in his head and not go crazy?—would only start a fight. And us getting into it at thirty-thousand feet was a very bad idea.

I was also too busy keeping my own shit together to bother entertaining Aaron. Not just because of our destination, which was stress-inducing enough. I simply wasn't a fan of flying on man-made aircraft. Flying on my own, using the wind currents and my Meta powers to guide me, was something I had total control over. Sitting inside a giant metal tube going five hundred miles an hour was out of my control, and it meant keeping a tight lid on my emotions. The last thing I needed to do was get upset and cause unexpected turbulence.

The jet's main cabin had three rows of seats in front and a small lounge in the back. After takeoff, we'd silently moved to opposite ends of the lounge's long faux-leather sofa, and then proceeded to ignore each other. A few minutes ago, Aaron had discarded his tablet in favor of staring at me from his end of the couch. And then he spoke.

"Fine," I said. I put down the tablet I'd been reading—a pre-departure gift from Teresa, full of information on the ex-Banes already registered and in our database. "What do you want to talk about?"

If Aaron noticed the challenge in my tone, he didn't react to it. "Tell me about Manhattan. About the prison, I mean. I don't know a whole lot about it."

At least he'd chosen an easy topic—kind of. I'd never forgotten those horrifying hours I'd spent in Central Park as a thirteen year-old Ranger trainee, being chased along by a group of Banes intent on murdering us. Over the years, I'd devoured every additional scrap of information I could find on the man-made prison they'd created out of the skeleton of Manhattan Island, including security protocols and street maps. As a teenager, I'd entertained ideas of getting inside and taking out Jinx. Now all those years of studying should help us do our jobs that much faster.

Still…. "What have you been reading about this whole time?" I asked, pointing at the tablet next to Aaron's knee. We'd been given identical information, and everything he needed to know about the prison was on his tablet.

"Official documents and government reports, mostly. Suspected hiding locations for the people we're searching for, as well as a rundown of their powers."

"Did you get to the part with the map of the prison and all the specs?"

"First thing."

I resisted the urge pull a face. "So why are you asking me about it?"

"Because you've been there, and I never have."

Sweat prickled across my forehead. "I haven't been there in fifteen years."

Aaron tilted his head to the left, like a bird observing a potential worm in the grass—or a killer sizing up his next victim. Same difference.

Okay, so that wasn't a very generous description, but give me a break here. Maybe he could dispute that he wasn't a killer by the basic definition of the word, arguing that the consciousness of the host remained inside him in some vague capacity, but it didn't change the fact that bodies had been left behind. Or parts of bodies. Four people—Ronald Jarvis, Joel Stevenson, Arnold Stark, and Miguel Ortega—were no longer among the general population, mingling with their friends and loved ones, because of choices made by Test Subject 0982, aka King. 

Now alias Aaron Scott. He insisted the peaceful amalgamation of King and Aaron was the person we interacted with, and he was the person he'd chosen to become. How that supposedly worked with four other consciousnesses floating around in his head was totally beyond me—and it was why I just didn't trust Aaron.

Working together this week was going to be an extra-special treat.

At least he was easy on the eyes. Not that I was ogling or anything, but Aaron's dirty blond hair and green eyes (a darker green than mine) were a definite win in the genetic lottery. In my more reckless youth, my type was usually defined by "available" and "male." This past year my type had been completely nonexistent, for a variety of reasons, but Aaron was—no way.  

I was so not letting my brain go there.

"I read a little about that final battle you were in," Aaron said. "You were pretty brave for a bunch of kids."

I wanted to laugh, but didn't. Bravery hadn't factored much into it at the time. We were running from grownups who wanted to kill us. There's nothing vaguely heroic in trying to save your own ass.