Julie Kenner's Blog, page 81
July 16, 2013
Romance Scavenger Hunt Sweepstakes! #HuntforRomance #RWA13
Headed down to Hotlanta for RWA? Make sure to download the “Hunt for Romance” smart phone-based scavenger hunt app that Romance at Random and Loveswept have partnered to create.
The concept is similar to a traditional scavenger hunt- this is just the app based version! The app will encourage you to snap pictures with authors (including me!) take augmented reality photos with virtual hunks, join the conversation online, and will be entered into the sweepstakes to win one of the following prizes:
And check it out …. one of the “tasks” is to take a picture of your room key …. which just happens to have a cover I know and love (that would be Release Me … book one of the Stark Trilogy!)
Grand Prize: iPad Mini
First Runner-Up Prize: Your name included in an upcoming book by RITA nominated author Ruthie Knox! Plus, a bundle of signed books.
10 Additional Winners will receive a bundle of signed books.
The app is available for download now in both the Apple App store and in Google Play. Search “Hunt for Romance” or follow these links.
Apple App store www.socialscavenger.com/iphone/romance
Google Play www.socialscavenger.com/android/romance
For a full list of prizes and official rules visit: www.readloveswept.com or www.romanceatrandom.com
July 15, 2013
Michele Hauf on Killing Vampires
I’m thrilled to have Michele Hauf blogging today about one of my favorite subjects, vampires!
Buffy did it best. You have to admit, when it came to killing vampires, she had style, efficiency, and even excellent banter thrown in to boot. One stab of her stake and the vampire ashed. End of threat. (Unless there were more of his buddies waiting in line. Run, buddies run!) All Buffy needed was a wooden stake, and she was ready to rock.
The methods to killing vampires varies vastly. From author to author, I suspect, you’ll find many similarities, but as well, differences.
In Dracula, Stoker could fend off vampires with garlic and holy water. You had to stake the vampire in the heart (or drive a stake through the heart of a dead vampire) and then you should also cut off his head.
The head-cutting-off part has fallen by the wayside in current vamp-killing methods, though I’m sure some authors still utilize that messy addition to the staking.
In my world of Beautiful Creatures, vampires are a tough kill. And yet, not. It simply requires the stake, but it’s got to pierce the heart (no where else on the body will deliver that killing blow). The heart bursting is key to my vampires’ deaths. You can run a rapier through the longtooth’s heart, pull it out, and he’ll just sneer at you as the tiny cut heals and he lunges for you with his fangs. Make sure the stake (or item used to pierce the heart) is thick enough to rip that organ apart and cause true death. Then the vampire ashes (clothing burning in the process) and falls to a heap at the hunter’s feet. If they are a newer vampire, they won’t ash.
Sunlight may or may not kill a vampire. Again, it varies from author to author. My world follows Stoker’s idea that the vampire could walk during the day but his powers are lesser. My vampires will eventually start to burn under the sun, so they do avoid it. There is a specific strain of the vampire breed in my world that will instantly burn, and ash when touched by sunlight.
These are just a few methods to ending a vampire’s life. What are some other methods you’ve read about and how did you find them to fit into the accepted ‘norms’ for usual vampire deaths?
You can find Michele at:
http://pinterest.com/toastfaery
http://twitter.com/michelehauf
Want to learn more about BEAUTIFUL DANGER? Here’s the blurb:
Could Her Sworn Enemy Lead Her Out of Darkness?
As a member of an ancient order of vampire hunters, Lark has found that eliminating dangerous vampires is about more than duty. It’s personal—a kill for every day her husband was held captive before his death. Staking her prey isn’t a challenge until she confronts Domingos LaRoque. Mad with vengeance and the blood of a powerful phoenix, Domingos tests her skills…and seduces her soul.
Once a talented musician, Domingos can’t escape the constant music in his head…or his need to destroy the werewolf pack that tortured him. Though trusting the hunter ordered to kill him can be his gravest mistake, the dark desires between them can’t be refused. Yet as he and Lark become allies to defeat a mutual threat, loving the enemy may be the ultimate sacrifice.
Visit Lark and Domingos’ Pinterest page!
Thanks to Michele Hauf for blogging today!
Be sure to answer Michele’s question about killing vampires! Leave a comment below.
P.S. - We're only days away from the release of book 3 of the Stark Trilogy!! Have you pre-ordered Complete Me yet?
P.P.S. And why not scroll down and share the post? After all, sharing is sexy!
XXOO
--J.K.
July 14, 2013
A Facebook Exclusive #StarkOnSunday – an Excerpt from Stark Trilogy book 3, Complete Me
LOVE these graphics from Eternal Romance!
If you’re looking for a bonus #StarkOnSaturdaySunday … then head over to my J. Kenner Facebook page for an only-on-Facebook bonus excerpt from Complete Me, book 3 of the Stark Trilogy!
I’ve posted one … just because!
Well, just because we’re getting sooooooo close to the July 30 release of Complete Me, book 3 of the Stark Trilogy!
July 13, 2013
A new #StarkOnSaturday excerpt from Complete Me, Stark Trilogy Book 3!
Almost there!!! The release of Complete Me, book 3 of the Stark Trilogy by me (J. Kenner) is just around the corner!! (Sorry for the late posting! After Disney, I seem to be off a day, LOL!)Just a few more #StarkOnSaturday posts until the release of Complete Me, book three in the Stark Trilogy that began with with Release Me, continued with Claim Me, and will conclude with Complete Me! ).
(And the quote above is from Claim Me … I found it on Goodreads with the Sinfully Sexy Book Reviews‘s review and thought it was too pretty not to use!)
Enjoy!
He’s trying to grab control of all that, and it’s just slipping through his fingers. I get it; I do.
But at the end of the day that doesn’t change a thing.
“Do not fight me on this, Nikki.”
“Hell yes, I’m fighting. Why bother to put the gate around my apartment if you’re not going to trust that it will do it’s job? I mean, I don’t like getting nasty mail any more than you do, but for all we know it was mailed from Antarctica.”
He strides to me, all power and control and cool masculinity. He reaches out and his finger brushes my cheek, the shock of his touch sending sparks through me. “I don’t like being defied,” he says.
I suck in air, determined not to melt or back down. “I don’t like being bossed around.” I shift my feet, mentally planting my stance along with my posture. “You’re not winning this one, Damien. Deal with it.”
His finger trails down my neck to the collar of my T-shirt. “Do you have any idea how frustrated I am right now?”
I shudder, the light pressure of his touch sending all sorts of decadent promises swirling through me. “I know what you’re doing.” My words tremble. “It won’t work.”
“Won’t it?”
I close my eyes, shivering as his fingertip follows the curve of my breast. “I’m not giving in.”
He fists his hand around the collar of my shirt and tugs me close. “I’ll have you safe,” he murmurs. As he holds me in place with one hand, with the other he captures my waist.
He eases me backward, and I feel the bed press against the back of my thighs. My body tingles with awareness, but also with something new. This is the Damien I know so well, but there’s a quality to his touch I haven’t felt before. A take-no-prisoners attitude that excites me, making my inner thighs tingle and my cunt throb for his touch.
“I want to cup my hand around you,” he murmurs, sliding his hand over my sex as if in illustration, and then making me gasp when he uses that grip to lift me up onto the bed, the pressure from his thumb on my pubis and his palm over my sex so intense it send tremors though me, like portents of an explosion to come.
He lays me out on the bed, one hand stroking circles on my sex and the other cupping my breast. I moan, my hips gyrating to meet him, my back arching up to increase the pressure of his hand against my painfully sensitive nipple. “That protective bubble you mentioned? I want to keep you locked inside. Whatever it takes,” he says. “You can’t possibly know how much I need you.”
And if you want more Damien and Nikki, why not pre-order Complete Me from Amazon or from Barnes and Noble! On-sale July 30!
And if you missed Release Me, you can snag your copy from your favorite retailers here:
Random House
Amazon (print)
Amazon (kindle)
Amazon United Kingdom
Barnes and Noble (print or Nook)
Books-A-Million
Kobo
iBooks
Indie BoundAnd, of course, you can get Book 2, Claim Me, from these great retailers:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-a-Million
Random House
your favorite independent bookseller
in the U.K. from Amazon
in the U.K. from Waterstones
in the U.K. from WH Smith
More soon,
XXOO
July 12, 2013
Phoebe Matthews Tells Why Vampires Are (And Always Will Be) Popular
I’m thrilled to have Phoebe Matthews on my blog today discussing the enduring popularity of vampires!
One of the original vampires!
A ghost can’t manage a hug. Werewolves have that messy turning problem. The eating habits of ghouls are a turnoff. And as for zombies, dropping bits and pieces of themselves limits their shelf life. Oh sure, there are always the fairyland characters, but somehow they tend to maintain a didactic overtone of childhood tales.
For a character who can be both sexy and paranormal, it is hard to beat vampire protagonists. All a reader has to do is imagine a dream lover. An ideal. A makeover for a current flawed lover. This replacement won’t bother the real lover because, hey, unless the lover is a mindreader, he or she never knows what’s going on. Readers can simply find a perfect dream lover and enjoy an exciting romance in the privacy of their reading time. And if the novel is downloaded to an ereader, there isn’t even a visible cover to betray, with a sexy image, the subject matter.
Vampires today, including Ian Somerhalder as Damon in The Vampire Diaries!
Examples of imaginary vampire lovers? For smooth charm I nominate Henry in the Blood series by Tanya Huff, complete with courtly manners and a high rise condo. Henry supports himself by writing romance novels. As he has centuries of experience in lovemaking, his books are bestsellers, of course. Another romantic vampire is Harry Dresden’s sword wielding half-brother, Thomas, in the Dresden series by Jim Butcher. Thomas works as a hairdresser with a devoted clientele and could model for GQ except for that little self control problem. Like a rougher type? There is Charlaine Harris’s Bill in the Sookie Stackhouse novels. For sassy wickedness, remember Spike on the Buffy TV series?
Vampires can be part of packs or they can be loners, rulers or followers. Rachel Caine’s vampires control a college town where the students are human and you can imagine how well that works out. Some vampires are Regency heroines or smack dab in the center of the latest steam punk novel. They do everything from glitter charmingly in sunlight to self destruct in a burst of flame. Some are indestructible, some are extremely vulnerable. And as for taking the romantic lead, vampires can be as gorgeous as any reader or writer wants to believe them to be.
No wonder vampires continue to hold center stage in the fiction world. If one type becomes a bore, the next novel will introduce a new variety of vampire and there we all go, new fans of a new flavor and enjoying every minute. The secret to the neverending vampire popularity is flexibility.
The vampire in my Turning Vampire series is an incredibly innocent young woman with a sexy human boyfriend and not another vampire in sight to give her advice.
Many urban fantasy novels are dark, grim, serious. As none of my novels contain these elements, it seems appropriate to add the word “lite” to my site. Not “light” as in enlightening, “lite” as in beer, entertaining.
Skol!
– Phoebe
Phoebe Matthews currently writes three urban fantasy series: Mudflat Magic, Turning Vampire, and Sunspinners, all set in the Pacific Northwest where she lives. Her novels have been published by Avon, Holt, Putnam, Silhouette and others.
Vampire Career, the first novel in the Turning Vampire series published by Dark Quest, is available in ebook or print. The third novel in the series will be released in August.
Who’s your favorite vampire? Movie? Book?
July 11, 2013
99 cent CARPE DEMON for #kindle – grab it before the price goes up!
Or so Kate Connor discovers in Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom when she’s forced out of retirement when a demon crashes through her kitchen window — right when she’s trying to prep for an impromptu dinner party!
If you haven’t already got a copy, be sure and snag one before Amazon adjusts the price up!
Meet Kate in the series that shows “what would happen if Buffy got married and kept her past a secret. It’s a hoot.” New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series, Charlaine Harris.
And for both old and new fans, we now have a FIRM release schedule!!
Books 2 and 3 (California Demon: The Secret Life of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom and Demons Are Forever: Confessions of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom) are both already available for the Kindle and the Nook, and are coming soon to other etailers.
Books 4 and 5 (Deja Demon and Demon Ex Machina) will be available in August and September.
And, drumroll, the all new Book 6 – Pax Demonica – will be available in October! (It’s taken a while, I know, but when Pax first jumped onto the indie radar I didn’t have the rights back to books 1 to 5. Now that I do, I’ve had to get them ready and available before the newest book could go live!
I’m psyched! I hope you are, too!
In the meantime, grab a digital copy of Carpe Demon and tell your friends!
Who’s your Damien (from the Stark Trilogy, of course)?
Love this image from a Tweep, (MissChristy125), but it raises that eternal question: Who is Damien Stark?
I know a lot of folks think Matt Bomer, but if forced to choose someone other than the Damien who lives in my head, I think I still lean toward Ian Somerhalder. Though Henry Cavill is nice, too!
My top pic for Damien Stark
Then again, who cares! After all, it’s just a few more weeks until Complete Me (Stark Trilogy, book 3) comes out!
July 10, 2013
Hump Day Books from Emma Jay, Vicki Hinze, Jessica Slade, Kathryn Shay, Maureen McGowan, Phoebe Matthews, Danelle Harmon, and Zoe York
Need a new book to spice up your week? Try one of these great titles!
All on the Line (A Blackwolf Hot Shots erotic novella)
Learn more at Emma’s website!
Duplicity
Special Low Price $2.99
Learn more at Vicki’s website!
Hotter On The Edge
Now 99¢!
Learn more at Hotter on the Edge
In Too Deep (Hidden Cove Series)
An interesting take on firefighters’ personal and professional lives FREE!
Learn more at Kathryn’s website!
Compliance (The Dust Chronicles)
Save on both the hardcover or kindle editions now!
Learn more at Maureen’s website!
Watch Dog? (Mudflat Magic)
New stories for fans of Guard Dog? and the Mudflat Magic series.
Learn more at Phoebe’s website!
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Four Irresistible Rogues (Four Complete Historical Romance Novels)
FOUR IRRISISTIBLE ROGUES is just 99 cents for a very short time only!
Learn more at Danelle’s website!
What Once Was Perfect (The Wardham Series)
First in a new small town series!
Learn more at Zoey’s website!
If you would like to submit a book to the Hump Day feature, click here!
July 9, 2013
9 Ways to Simplify Your Romance eBook Collection by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Love to read romance, but can’t get to the books you want? Tracy Cooper-Posey has just the solution!
Can’t Keep up? 9 Ways to Simplify Your Romance eBook Collection
If you have hundreds of books on your reader, but can’t find anything to read, then read on for ten tips to clearing out the clutter and catching up with all the great reads you forgot you had…
Pick an ebook format as your “primary” format.
Thanks to smartphones, tablets and the proliferating number of dedicated ereaders available, there’s a good chance you have more than one reading application on your devices: Kindle, Sony, FB Reader, Adobe Digital Editions, or even the proprietary application that was installed when you bought your device. There are dozens of applications, and each of them read only one or two different formats.
If you catch yourself scratching your head as you try to recall which reader has that book you just remembered you have, then you need to pick a reader and a format as your preferred ebook reading home.
Convert all your other books to your primary format so they’re all in one centralized reader.
Don’t uninstall your other reader programs. They are useful for reading books as soon as you buy them (if you can’t wait/can’t access your usual conversion process), and for opening books that have DRM protection, if you don’t strip your books (a contentious subject we won’t tackle today).
Centralize your books in one location.
Pull all your book files out of the directories of your other readers and dump them all in the library folder for your chosen reader. You can convert as you go. Most readers and applications will “discover” any new books placed in the right folder.
Some readers will not “find” the books, and the book has to be imported or side-loaded through the reader software, which is when an ebook management program comes in useful:
Keep most of your ebooks on your hard-drive/in the cloud, not in your reader.
Don’t use your primary reader as your organizing program, and don’t use it to keep all your books, all the time.
Readers and reading applications are very good for reading. They don’t organize, sort or classify as well as other programs or you can. Titles get lost and buried inside your reader.
Keep all your books in your central location on your hard drive or in the cloud (or both!), and only load your reader with a dozen or so books you intend to read in the next few days/weeks. When you’ve finished with those books, reload your reader with new books.
In this way you’ll never lose track of books you bought months ago.
Use special characters and numbers to keep directories pinned at the top.
If you’re maintaining and organizing your central library manually, then it is easy to keep favourites or TBR’s at the top of the folder. Use special characters and numbers to rename the folders holding your books or authors, and even the book files themselves to ensure the ones you don’t want to forget rise to the top of the pile.
For example, the characters !, ~, -, can be used in combination to “pin” folders and files at the top. So a folder called “Wyndham, John” or a file called “Midwich Cuckoos.pdf” can be renamed as “ ~ Wyndham, John ~ ” or “ ! Midwich Cuckoos.pdf” for them to float to the top. Combinations can be used, too: !~XXX~! or –xxx— or other combinations will all lift a file to the top, but they have their own hierarchy, so a file named –xxx– will list itself beneath a file named -xxx-.
Similarly, you can use numbers:
1. TBR bookname
2. TBR book name
3. TBR book name
will list, for example, all your chosen TBR books in the order you want to read them. Once you’re done with the book, you can strip the number and the “TBR” from the file name and the book will refile itself back on the shelf for you.
Calibre
Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/) is arguably the best ebook management application out there. It is a “meta” program – it doesn’t care what devices or readers you use, or how many. It manages all your ebooks from everywhere. It sorts the files on in your central library automatically.
Depending on what plug-ins you install and how you set up your preferences, you can use Calibre to automatically import any new books every time it opens, and automatically convert those books to your preferred format, plus load them into your reader application’s directory, or send them to your preferred device.
It can also fetch all the meta-data that belongs to the book, raiding a dozen different sources for the information. You can hook up the book with its blurb and reviews (which many books are missing, so figuring out what older books are all about is a pain in the neck), ratings, ISBN numbers, publisher info, tags and more.
You can also bulk assign categories and tags to books, or assign individual tags to individual books – great for when Calibre imports a dozen at a time.
Calibre will also open any format book in its collection, but it’s not the prettiest reader app around. The reading function is best used for checking contents and title pages as you need to.
Calibre is not the only meta-ebook organizer around, so if you don’t like it, or don’t want to use it, try finding an alternative that suits your preferences. These über organizers take a lot of the pain out of managing your ebooks.
[PS: I do not have any financial interest in plugging Calibre. I just happen to think it rocks.]
Take full advantage of any tagging or categorizing functions
Almost every reader and reading application has some sort of sorting function – tags, categories, folders or subjects that can be assigned to each book and collections. Some of these sorting functions are crude at best – a good excuse to find a more reader-friendly program.
Use to the hilt whatever functionality is provided. Read the help guide or application manual and take the time to sort your books – you will thank yourself later. The first time you do this will take forever, if you’ve got a large collection, but after that, categorizing is a no-time, no-brainer task for each book you acquire.
Don’t think of tags and categories just as genre-sorting devices. You can use any tag. Some useful ones include:
Fiction/Non-fiction/Free title/Indie title/Publisher name/TBR (to be read)/Favourite/5-star favourite/Author name/Dud/sucks (if you really want to keep the book in your collection!)/Bookseller name
Delete unwanted books immediately
You’ve probably got dozens and dozens of books you’ve picked up on a whim. They were free, or cheap, or you went wild with a gift card and now you can’t remember why you thought buying that book was such a good idea. Two chapters (or two pages!) in, you’re wrinkling your nose and ready to shoot the author.
Delete these books from your reader or application immediately. Now. You’re still going to hate the book in a week’s time. Clear out your reader as you go. The book itself is not lost if your retailer keeps your books on their servers (usually), and/or you’re centralizing all your books on your hard drive.
Convert-Shelve-Categorize & Store as you purchase
As soon as you buy or acquire a new title, move it out of the reader application if it isn’t your default, and “process” the book for your reading preferences. Don’t wait or let new titles stack up or you’ll be back to square one.
Place the book in your central collection, converted to your preferred format, and with all the meta data included, including any categories or tags the book needs.
Use cloud storage to synchronize your reading devices.
If you’re using a reader that doesn’t automatically synchronize your books across devices, then you can do it yourself. Set up your reader’s preferences so that the main book folder for the reader is a directory of current book (not your central library) stored in the cloud.
Do this for every device and application you use, and then you only need copy the books you want to read to the folder sitting in the cloud, and your reading devices will all “receive” a copy of those books.
Happy reading!
Kiss Across Chains was released on July 1.
When dying becomes an act of love.
It is four years since Taylor and Brody almost lost Veris during the First Crusade. Now they know how to control time jumps, they have settled into a very nearly perfect, nearly human life, raising their daughter Marit.
When Brody defies Queen Tira to protect Marit, the three of them jump back three days in time to collect evidence the queen set up Brody for a drug bust in retribution. The jump sends them back to Brody’s personal nightmare: Fifth century Constantinople.
While Brody survives as a flogged slave, Taylor masquerades as the wife of an aristocrat and searches for Brody to release him. They must wait for Veris to find them before jumping home and Taylor watches each brutal chariot race, wondering if this will be Brody’s last. Brody once died in the Hippodrome and he is human this time, too….
Warning: This story features two super hot alpha vampire heroes, multiple sex scenes, including anal sex, MM sexual play, and MMF sex. Do not read this book if frank sexual language and sex scenes offend you.
The time-space continuum was restored to order at the end of this book. Promise.
This is the third book in the Kiss Across Time Series
Book 1: Kiss Across Time
Book 2: Kiss Across Swords
Book 3: Kiss Across Chains
I was so caught up in this book I was in tears … It was just heart wrenching. Cocktails and Books
Tracy Cooper-Posey is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author. She writes erotic vampire romances, hot romantic suspense, paranormal and urban fantasy romances. She has published over 50 novels since 1999, been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award.
She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated four times for Book Of The Year and Byzantine Heartbreak was a 2012 winner. She has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught romance writing at MacEwan University.
She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together. In her spare time she enjoys history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.
Her website can be found at http://TracyCooperPosey.com
Catch up with Tracy at her website…Amazon…All Romance eBooks…Smashwords…Kobo…Facebook…Twitter.
Thanks for the great post Tracy! How do you organize your ebook library?
P.S. - If you enjoy romance with a magical twist, my award-winning THE CAT'S FANCY is currently on sale for only 99 cents! And it's also in the top 10 of several of the Kindle romance charts! Woot!
And as a cool bonus, it's the prequel to my fun series of superhero romances that began with the USA Today bestseller Aphrodite's Kiss!
I hope you check out The Cat's Fancy!
P.P.S. And why not scroll down and share the post? After all, sharing is sexy!
XXOO
--J.K.
Reinventing yourself: Come meet all my “me’s” at the Girlfriends Book Club!
I’m guest blogging today at the Girlfriends Book Club, talking about Authorial Reinvention, a topic near and dear to my heart since I’m slightly schizo and seem to create a new persona whenever the urge hits (okay, slight exaggeration there…). Come on by and say hi!
