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Category: Former Riskies

News and a Contest

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News!

 The UK Kindle edition of Not Wicked Enough is available on Amazon UK. If you are in the UK, Australia or New Zealand you can buy the Kindle version here and for less than the paper version!

It turns out I also have the UK/AUS/NZ rights to Scandal and Indiscreet. There are a few other countries where I have the rights so I’ll be adding those to the territories as well.

I need to get new covers made for Scandal and Indiscreet, so I imagine it will be a month or so before those are ready to put on sale. I believe I have final-copy digital files. Something to look forward to, eh?

Also, If you read German, the German edition of My Wicked Enemy is available for pre-order via Amazon.co.uk here. I think the German title is In the Arms of Demons but I don’t know.

 

The guy looks like the model in the photo I used for A Darker Crimson.

Contest!

My birthday is April 30th. I will be muffmurmbee years old! We need to celebrate. With books/gift card for books and stuff. Surprise stuff which I will surprise you with. You are at my mercy as to gifts.

To enter the contest leave a comment to this post by, say, Midnight Pacific on Monday April 30th, 2012. You should pay me a sincere compliment. You have to MEAN it. Or be really convincing. Also tell me what you’d like to get me for my birthday.

RULES:

You must be 18 or older to enter. Void where prohibited. Winner will be selected at random. You have to either leave me a contact in your email or else commit to checking back to see if you won. You’ll have two weeks to acknowledge your winning ways if you’re the winner, otherwise, I’ll select an alternate winner. International OK! Unless for some reasons it’s legally not.

Posted in Former Riskies, Giveaways | Tagged , , , , , | 21 Replies

The Nuclear Option

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First, let me preface this by saying I am sleep deprived because of a day job production database situation that kept me up and tense for about 10 hours Sunday afternoon through about 2:00am Monday. So the brain is a bit mushy.  Things came right in the end, but it was scary bad for a while.

Anyway.

It seems to be the case that when I buy books, physical reference books in particular, eventually, I run out of places to put them. My stacks are out of control. In fact, they no longer resemble stacks. Instead, they slid around like there’s a layer of jelly between them.

If I go higher, someone, probably me, is going to get hurt.

If I go wider, someone, probably me, is going to fall down in the attempt to find floor space for my feet.

So I have had to get mean.

Yes.

REALLY mean. Meaner than that Spartan cat.

I have begun to throw away books. Paper books. In my TBR. Book I bought and wanted to read. I loaned my copy of Wise Man’s Fear (a behemoth) to someone and told the loanee to take his time because when I do have time to read the book myself, I will buy it for Kindle. I just don’t do big books in paper anymore. Sorry.

Big Freaking Hardback Fantasy vs. iPad3?

The ipad3 wins. The iPad3 wins in just about every category actually.

The substructure beneath my TBR has begun to emerge.

My GOD!!!! There’s a floor here!!!!

I have found other things, too. Like, my copy of Thieves Kitchen, the Regency Underworld. I’ve been wondering where that went. People, there was a LOT of crime in the Regency.

Until such time as an eBook can adequately display the contents of some of the great, image-heavy reference books, I won’t be giving up my reference library. I suspect none of those reference books are making it to digital anytime soon.

Shame that, because eventually the presentation for books like that will be BETTER than paper.  (video, color, 3-D image rendering. — Imagine if your fashion book showed you a 360 of that gown and zoomed in on the details, or showed a person wearing it, not a mannequin but a person. THAT would be awesome. I can’t wait.)

My TBR I’m afraid, is physical toast. It’s going digital.

My Questions to You

  • How close are you to going nuclear with your physical TBR?
  • What’s in it?
  • What’s a book you’re dying to read but haven’t yet?
  • What’s the best book you’ve read lately?

Next week, Crime?

P.S. Whichever Risky was nice enough to put the cover of Not Wicked Enough in the right-hand column over there ——>
Thank you. That was really nice.

Posted in Former Riskies, Reading | Tagged , , , | 7 Replies

Free Fall With Bonus Shameless Self-Promotion

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Cover Of Free Fall. This guy is a demon.

Well. How often does the Risky Regencies have a picture of a demon? Not so often!

Free Fall, A My Immortals Series novella is available now on Kindle.
OMG REALLY???? 
 
Yes, Really. You should rush out and buy it now.

Buy Free Fall from Amazon or see below for another way to get this story.

OK, I’ll stop playing with fonts now. But it was fun. I kind of want to do that again.

About Free Fall

Attorney Lys Fensic has spent her life controlling a psychic power that kills. Her ability to lock herself down falls apart when her ex, a mage, sends enslaved demons to kill her. In a psychic free fall, she turns to tough guy Telos Khūnbish for help. But is he a mage as she’s always suspected or is he something far more dangerous?

Free Fall is set in the My Immortals series world where demons and magic-using humans called the magekind are not quite getting along. Most people have no idea they’re living in what amounts to a magical war-zone. Free Fall is based on the short story Future Tense but is considerably expanded and includes scenes that were censored from the short story. This novella is about 35,000 words (130 pages).

I should mention the censored stuff is way hot. Smoking hot. If you’re bothered by demon sex you should not read this story. Also, there are no Regency gowns. Sorry.

Review Copy Anyone?

In the meantime, anyone who agrees to post an HONEST review of Free Fall on Amazon should leave a comment on this post. I’ll send you a .MOBI version of the file.

An Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

11:40 AM. Lobby of 101 California Street, San Francisco, California
He was here. Telos Khūnbish had come. Relief nearly demolished her, it hit so powerfully. He was here, and now, improbably, she believed everything was going to be all right. Her life was irrevocably screwed, but she believed. She ignored the noise of the lobby and the man standing beside her. He was irrelevant. What a damn sad commentary it was that after nearly ten years in the city, Khūnbish was the closest thing she had to a friend. Maybe even a real friend, because he was here, and she believed she’d get through this.

Her heart kicked up a notch when she got a clear view of his black BMW turning onto Front Street. Now, of course, she wondered if she’d made a mistake involving him. She didn’t make a habit of asking for help. She wasn’t good with people. She wasn’t even sure she’d asked right. Seems she had.

The BMW was definitely looking to park. Good thing. In less than ten minutes the lunchtime rush would start, and she’d be in real trouble. Even now, there were too many people around.

“My ride’s here,” she said to Jack, the man standing beside her. She didn’t make eye contact because that would be dangerous. Instead she stared at his tie, but that turned out to be a mistake. The dark red silk looked like blood streaming down his chest. She focused on the shiny marble floor and the tips of his Oxfords. “I’m fine. Really.”

“Let me carry your things.” Jack reached for the moving box that contained the personal contents from her office. He knew Michael, and that meant she couldn’t trust him. Simple fact. She couldn’t trust anyone who knew Michael Ford.

“No.” She gripped the box tighter and looked at the street again, as if Khūnbish could help her from afar. The BMW was waiting for a van to pull away from the curb. Khūnbish had never met Michael. That was part of the reason she’d called him. That, and she didn’t know anyone else.

“Lys.” Jack was thirty-ish, good looking, and in line to make partner in the next two years. He did good suit. He was a competent lawyer and a decent litigator.

She faked a smile and looked at Jack without directly meeting his eyes. Over the years, she’d gotten good at faking contact normal people never thought twice about. She lifted the box an inch. “Hardly weighs a thing.”

Jack smoothed a hand down the river of blood that was his tie. She held her breath, half expecting his palm to come away smeared red. He reached for her moving box, and she jumped back, heart slamming against her chest. Either Jack didn’t get it, or he was in league with Michael and meant her harm. He kept moving toward her.

“Don’t.” The word came out sharp and loud. The security guard at the lobby reception area looked over. She was close to losing it. Way too close. Blocking shouldn’t be this hard for her, but the last several days had been…difficult. Not enough sleep. Not enough to eat. Too much caffeine. Far too much stress.

“Lys. Come on.” His tie vibrated at the edges of her vision. Blood red. A river of red. He reached for the box again. “I’m only trying to help out.”

She risked a look at his face. His smile was hesitant, a little irritated, but that would be normal if he really just wanted to help. Just a regular person trying to be nice. Part of her didn’t believe it. He knew Michael, and Michael had tried to kill her.

Question

If you got this far, YOU ARE AWESOME and I love YOU best of all. More than the rest of them.

If you could ask a demon any question ever, and there would be NO TRICKS, what would you ask?

Posted in Former Riskies, Risky Book Talk | Tagged , , , | 3 Replies

Looking at Details (Post Regency Visual Rhetoric)

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The images in this post are from my copy of GWM Reynold’s Penny Dreadful series, Mysteries of London. The publication of the series spans the period from about 1837 to 1844.

I apologize for the images: I don’t have the correct lens for these kinds of pictures, and I didn’t want to scan them because then I’d have to lay the book flat and further break the binding.

Cross-Dressing in 1831

There are readers (and authors) with strong opinions about cross-dressing heroines. I have heard some people state categorically that such historicals are wildly inaccurate. That might be true. Depends on the book, I suppose. Below is an example of a cross-dressing heroine for a story that opens in 1831. It is, in fact, the opening of the wildly popular and successful Mysteries Of London, a series that made GWM Reynold’s fortune, by the way.

Obviously, the popular culture liked some ladies dressed as men.

There are many other interesting things present in this illustration (above), such as the smog. The horse’s ass is another. It has, I’m pretty sure, just relieved itself. Or maybe is actually in the process. Then again, as you’ll see, there are many tricks of shadow.

Keeping in mind the choices the artist made, note the pregnant woman in tatters with three young children and just to left, a plainly well-off couple. What does that suggest about the consequences of poverty and a woman not being able to control her fertility?

Ah, the cross-dressing heroine. Her hair is down, which seems odd if you wish to be taken for a man. The “meta” conversation about this illustration is to what extent the illustrator either deliberately, by instruction, or sub-consciously, drew a figure that possesses so much of the feminine that I look at that picture and say, yeah. Chick. Not fooled.

It’s interesting, I think, that so many of the figures appear to be looking at her and they don’t look happy.

Sorry for the poor quality. Too lazy to go take a better one. However, this picture (above) fascinates me most because of the hats hanging from pegs above the door.  This is a well-to-do home. Now, how handy is that? Pegs for the gentlemen’s hats? So much for the butler carrying away the hats. Maybe in the really rich houses.

Note as well the key in the door to the left. Keys in the doors. Yeah.

She’s a Lady. She’s Not A Lady.

Hmm. What messages might there be in the next two pictures?

In the picture above, there are obvious things such as the house, surroundings, the woman’s position and posture that tells us she’s wealthy and a lady. The table next to her has books and a flower. Itty-bitty flower and flower pot, which is interesting.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a historical where the flowers in a room were anything but large bouquets. In this book, however, there are plenty of examples of small pots containing very small greenery. They show up in several of the illustrations.

Well. The woman above is NOT a lady. So say I. Because, look at her. She’s not sitting up straight and the upper bit of her gown looks to be about to fall off any minute. And what’s that on HER table?

No books. Alcohol.  I believe in the foreground those are pipes. This is not a neat table. It’s cluttered. She has been drawn so that she looks dissolute. And thus, we see the signs of dissolution.

The LADY is plainly thinking wistful thoughts. Oh, Howard, how I miss you, my darling. I cannot even read my book without you.

The NOT A LADY does not look wistful. She looks tired. (I will represent to you that in the rest of this illustration there is a man standing by the fireplace.) She looks like she’s thinking: If that asshat asks to see my tits again, I’m going to smack him. Why doesn’t he ever ask if I want a foot rub? Oh, fuck it, I want a drink.

The Case of the Missing Package

(above) Ohh-la-la! They are kissing! ::giggle:: And look at his … you know. Hey. Wait a minute!

Where the hell is his dick?

That’s some fine tricks with shadows.

What do YOU think?

Posted in Former Riskies, Research | Tagged , , , | 8 Replies

A Regency Era Hottie Poet Who isn’t Byron

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In my internet perusing I came across this post at one of my favorite websites: Letters of Note.

Picture via Wikemedia. Charles Lamb by William Hazlitt

Two things:

One: Lamb was a hottie.
Two: He could wax effing eloquent about a cold. Who among us hasn’t felt like this:

If you told me the world will be at an end to-morrow, I should just say, “Will it?” I have not volition enough left to dot my i’s, much less to comb my eyebrows; my eyes are set in my head; my brains are gone out to see a poor relation in Moorfields, and they did not say when they’d come back again; my skull is a Grub-street attic to let—not so much as a joint-stool or a crack’d jordan left in it; my hand writes, not I, from habit, as chickens run about a little, when their heads are off. O for a vigorous fit of gout, cholic, toothache&-an earwig in my auditory, a fly in my visual organs; pain is life—the sharper, the more evidence of life; but this apathy, this death!

Dude. That was one miserable cold. Go read the entire letter.

Here’s one of his poems:

A Timid Grace Sits Trembling in her Eye

A timid grace sits trembling in her eye,
As loath to meet the rudeness of men’s sight,
Yet shedding a delicious lunar light
That steeps in kind oblivious ecstasy
The care-crazed mind, like some still melody:
Speaking most plain the thoughts which do possess
Her gentle sprite: peace, and meek quietness,
And innocent loves, and maiden purity:
A look whereof might heal the cruel smart
Of changed friends, or fortune’s wrongs unkind:
Might to sweet deeds of mercy move the heart
Of him who hates his brethren of mankind.
Turned are those lights from me, who fondly yet
Past joys, vain loves, and buried hopes regret.

And another

A Parody

Lazy-bones, lazy-bones, wake up and peep;
The Cat’s in the cupboard, your Mother’s asleep.
There you sit snoring, forgetting her ills:
Who is to give her her Bolus and Pills?
Twenty-five Angels must come into Town,
All for to help you to make your new gown-
Dainty aerial Spinsters & Singers:
Aren’t you asham’d to employ such white fingers?
Delicate Hands, unaccustom’d to reels,
To set ‘em a washing at poor body’s wheels?
Why they came down is to me all a riddle,
And left hallelujah broke off in the middle.
Jove’s Court & the Presence Angelical cut,
To eke out the work of a lazy young slut.
Angel-duck, angel-duck, wingèd & silly,
Pouring a watering pot over a lily,
Gardener gratuitous, careless of pelf,
Leave her to water her Lily herself,
Or to neglect it to death, if she chuse it;
Remember, the loss is her own if she lose it.

A Dramatic Fragment

‘Fie upon’t!
All men are false, I think. The date of love
Is out, expired, its stories all grown stale,
O’erpast, forgotten, like an antique tale
Of Hero and Leander.’

-John Woodvil

All are not false. I knew a youth who died
For grief, because his Love proved so,
And married with another.
I saw him on the wedding-day,–
For he was present in the church that day,
In festive bravery decked,
As one that came to grace the ceremony,–
I marked him when the ring was given:
His Countenance never changed;
And, when the priest pronounced the marriage blessing,
He put a silent prayer up for the bride–
For so his moving lip interpreted.
He came invited to the marriage-feast
With the bride’s friends,
And was the merriest of them all that day:
But they who knew him best called it feigned mirth;
And others said
He wore a smile like death upon his face.
His presence dashed all the beholders’ mirth,
And he went away in tears.
What followed then?
O then
He did not, as neglected suitors use,
Affect a life of solitude in shades,
But lived
In free discourse and sweet society
Among his friends who knew his gentle nature best.
Yet ever, when he smiled,
There was a mystery legible in his face;
But whoso saw him, said he was a man
Not long for this world–
And true it was; for even then
The silent love was feeding at his heart,
Of which he died;
Nor ever spoke word of reproach;
Only, he wished in death that his remains
Might find a poor grave in some spot not far
From his mistress’ family vault-being the place
Where one day Anna should herself be laid.

I keep forgetting how much I like poetry. It’s good to be reminded.

 

Posted in Former Riskies, Regency, Research | Tagged , , | 6 Replies