L.S. Hawker's Blog, page 6
September 7, 2015
Avelynn by Marissa Campbell
The Good, The Bad, and The Why of Writing
Writing. It can be the best of times or the worst of times. I’m often asked what I love about being a writer, and I’m happy to share all the yummy goodness, but since we have to support one another on this journey of authorship, it’s essential we also sit around the keyboard and commiserate on the difficulties. For at very least, misery loves company.
But first, the good news:
Being a writer is awesome.
You get to set your own hours.
You can work in your pyjamas.
You get to make your fantasies come true.
Or in the case of horror writers, you can add colour and life to your nightmares *shudder*.
Being a writer is also pretty cool.
When you tell people what you do, most of the time they seem genuinely interested. It’s like a party trick—now you can compete with the double jointed guy!
You have a really good excuse to sit around and read books.
It makes you look mysterious when you’re staring off into space.
It gives you a plausible explanation when you’re caught talking to yourself.
You’re not crazy. Really. Well, probably not.
Now for the bad news:
Being a writer is hard.
You have to fight the tantalizing pull of social media distractions.
You have to consistently come up with new ideas.
Your brain never shuts off.
You’ll be sorting through plot black holes and trying to untangle character motivations at 4:00am, or while you’re in the shower, or on the toilet, or on the treadmill, or at the gym, or while changing diapers, or making breakfast, or eating breakfast, or digesting breakfast.
You have to wait for things.
A lot. Like, as in all the time—think writing process, query process, publication process…
It’s a solitary act—unless you’ve managed to coerce someone into co-authoring with you.
Really, it’s just you, the crickets, and a blank screen.
So why do we do it? There are some pretty awesome perks that come with being a writer, but even for those tougher aspects of the job, there are some great workarounds:
To combat the persistent cacophony of our thoughts, we can turn to meditation. For a few moments each day we can close our eyes and focus on our breath. At very least, this will give us a few seconds reprieve before the onslaught starts up again.
To deal with the serious disconnect between what we want and when we want it, serenity can be found in the principles of acceptance and surrender, i.e., the only cure for immediate gratification is persistent exposure to long and torturous waiting. It’s real-life desensitization. Once we live through the length of time it takes for a book to be written, edited, picked up for publication, ready for publication, and set on shelves, we learn through hard-knocks experience that it’s not going to get any faster so we might as well get used to it.
September 1, 2015
August 31, 2015
New Thriller Features Badass Modern-day Rapunzel with a Bra Knife
Contact:
Lisa Stormes Hawker
LSHawker@gmail.com
720-289-8139
LSHawker.com
New Thriller Features Badass Modern-day Rapunzel with a Bra Knife
They said she was armed. They said she was dangerous. They were right.
Debut HarperCollins Witness Impulse author LS Hawker spins a suspenseful tale of a young woman on the run for her future and from the nightmares of her past
LITTLETON, Colorado — Petty Moshen spent most of her life as a prisoner in her own home, training with military precision for everything, ready for anything. She can disarm, dismember, and kill—and now, for the first time ever, she is free. Her paranoid father is dead, his extreme dominance and rules a thing of the past, but his influence remains as strong as ever. When his final will reveals a future more terrible than her captive past, Petty knows she must escape—by whatever means necessary. But when Petty learns the truth behind her father’s madness—and her own family—the reality is worse than anything she could have imagined. On the road and in over her head, Petty’s fight for her life has just begun.
Debut author LS Hawker’s THE DROWNING GAME (HarperCollins Witness Impulse, 2015, ISBN: 9780062435170, http://www.harpercollins.com/97800624...) will be released on September 22, 2015. “HarperCollins offered me a three-book deal with an option for a fourth based on this manuscript,” Hawker says. “One of my favorite things about THE DROWNING GAME is that (main character) Petty is unconcerned about her appearance or social expectations. She just is who she is and is unapologetic about it. She never learned how to be a people pleaser.”
Petty is an expert in self-defense and wears a Buck knife clipped to her bra at all times. “When I got my book contract,” Hawker says, “I gave identical knives to the members of my critique group as a thank-you gift for getting me here. I also sent one to my agent Michelle Johnson of Inklings Literary Agency, who told me she never thought a knife would make her cry, but this one did!”
One question Hawker gets asked a lot is how she was able to write Petty, a character who’s been untouched by the outside world, so convincingly. “I started writing THE DROWNING GAME immediately after my youngest daughter was diagnosed with autism,” Hawker says. “I didn’t realize how much this had influenced the character until one of my critique partners said, without knowing about my daughter’s diagnosis, that Petty seemed almost autistic. Her inability to read social cues or understand metaphor and sarcasm mirror my daughter’s.”
Hawker has written many novels and won several awards, including the Zebulon for THE DROWNING GAME, was a quarter-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest, a finalist in the Colorado Gold Contest, won first place the Paul Gillette Memorial Contest, and finaled in the Write Stuff Contest and the Delacorte First Young Adult Contest.
Hawker grew up in suburban Denver, indulging her worrisome obsession with true-crime books, and writing stories about anthropomorphic fruit and juvenile delinquents. She wrote her first novel at 14. Armed with a B.S. in journalism from the University of Kansas, she had a radio show called “People Are So Stupid,” edited a trade magazine, and worked as a traveling Kmart portrait photographer, but never lost her passion for fiction writing. She’s got a hilarious, supportive husband, two brilliant daughters, and a massive music collection. She lives in Colorado but considers Kansas her spiritual homeland.
Visit LSHawker.com to view THE DROWNING GAME trailer and read her blog about her adventures as a cocktail waitress, traveling Kmart portrait photographer, and witness to basement exorcisms.
###
About the Author:
LS Hawker has written many novels and won several awards, including the Zebulon for THE DROWNING GAME. She grew up in suburban Denver, indulging her worrisome obsession with true-crime books, and writing stories about anthropomorphic fruit and juvenile delinquents. She wrote her first novel at 14.
Armed with a B.S. in journalism from the University of Kansas, she had a radio show called “People Are So Stupid,” edited a trade magazine, and worked as a traveling Kmart portrait photographer, but never lost her passion for fiction writing.
She’s got a hilarious, supportive husband, two brilliant daughters, and a massive music collection. She lives in Colorado but considers Kansas her spiritual homeland.
Visit LSHawker.com to view THE DROWNING GAME trailer and read her blog about her adventures as a cocktail waitress, traveling Kmart portrait photographer, and witness to basement exorcisms.
About the Book:
THE DROWNING GAME
HarperCollins Witness Impulse, 2015
ISBN: 9780062435170
Website: http://LSHawker.com
To order: http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062435170/the-drowning-game
Media Interviews:
For an interview with LS Hawker, please email her at LSHawker@gmail.com.
August 8, 2015
FEARLESS by Elliott James is Coming 8/11!
FEARLESS by Elliott James
A modern twist to the Prince Charming tale in this third urban fantasy in the Pax Arcana series.
[image error]Fearless (a stand-alone novel and #3 in the Pax Arcana series)
by Elliott James
Release Date: 08/11/15
Orbit
Summary:
When your last name is Charming, rescuing virgins comes with the territory — even when the virgin in question is a nineteen-year-old college boy.
Someone, somewhere, has declared war on Kevin Kichida, and that someone has a long list of magical predators on their rolodex. The good news is that Kevin lives in a town where Ted Cahill is the new sheriff and old ally of John Charming.
The attacks on Kevin seem to be a pattern, and the more John and his new team follow that thread, the deeper they find themselves in a maze of supernatural threats, family secrets, and age-old betrayals. The more John learns, the more convinced he becomes that Kevin Kichida isn’t just a victim, he’s a sacrifice waiting to happen. And that thread John’s following? It’s really a fuse…
FEARLESS is the third novel in an urban fantasy series which gives a new twist to the Prince Charming tale. The first two novels are Charming & Daring.
[image error] [image error]
About Elliott James: An army brat and gypsy scholar, ELLIOTT JAMES is currently living in the Blue Ridge mountains of southwest Virginia. He’s been an avid reader since the age of three (or that’s what his family swears anyhow), and he has an abiding interest in mythology, martial arts, live music, hiking, and used bookstores.
Praise for Pax Arcana books:
“The Pax Arcana books are seriously good reads. Action, humor, and heart with unexpected twists and turns. If you are (like me) waiting for the next Butcher or Hearne — pick up Elliot James. Then you can bite your nails waiting for the next James, too.”—Patricia Briggs, New York Times #1 bestselling author of the Mercy Thompson series
“Loved it! Charming is a giant gift basket of mythology and lore delivered by a brilliant new voice in urban fantasy. Elliott James tells stories that are action-packed, often amusing, and always entertaining.”—Kevin Hearne, author of Hounded on Charming
“I loved this book from start to finish. Exciting and innovative, Charming is a great introduction to a world I look forward to spending a lot more time in.”—New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire on Charming
“James’s world is rich and complex and well worth diving into.”—Richard Kadrey on Charming
“In a saturated literary realm, James’s tale stands out for the gritty, believable world he builds…This is masculine urban fantasy in the vein of Jim Butcher and Mark del Franco.”—Booklist on Charming
EXCERPT
IT TAKES A VILLAGE IDIOT
Once Upon a Time, Ted Cahill had changed. The only real question was whether Cahill had changed too much or not enough.
For example, when I first met Cahill, he had been a mouthy homicide detective in Clayburg, Virginia. Now he was the sheriff of Tatum, New York, which basically meant that he was better paid, had more administrative responsibilities, and was forced to be a lot more polite to a lot more people. But when someone in Cahill’s jurisdiction died in a suspicious manner, he was still a homicide detective at heart. And Tatum and Clayburg had a lot in common: Both towns are nestled in mountains, both towns are hosts to small private universities, and both towns call themselves cities, as if saying the word could make it true. So, how much of the change in Cahill’s status and environment was really all that significant?
Another thing about Cahill that was different—but not unrecognizably so—was his physical appearance. Cahill’s skin was a little paler than when I’d first met him, and I was willing to swear that his freckles were disappearing. His excess body fat had melted off like wax from a lit candle, and his cheekbones were still pronounced, but in an angular way rather than chubby. His brown eyes were still small but now burned with an intensity that might be compelling or disturbing depending on how you looked at them… or how those eyes looked at you. This quality is actually fairly common among supernatural beings struggling with predatory instincts.
And that, of course, was the biggest change, the catalyst for all of the cosmetic alterations in Cahill’s life. Ted Cahill had become a dhampir, a vampire who still retained some of his humanity. It was when trying to figure out how much humanity Cahill still retained (or what humanity meant exactly) that things got confusing.
“So, what about it, wolf boy? Do you smell it?” Cahill had been pushy and snappish ever since we arrived. He seemed to feel like he was doing us a huge favor by letting us help him, because asking for help had been so difficult.
“I smell it,” I confirmed. Sig Norresdotter, Cahill, and I were standing in the middle of a frosty and fenced in horseback riding ring next to Kincaid University’s stables. It was that kind of private school. Tatum in January was a lot colder than Virginia, and I was wearing a grey hoodie under a brown Flying Tiger fighter pilot jacket. I was also wearing black leather gloves, thermals under my dark blue jeans, two pairs of socks beneath my running shoes, and a slight frown.
The scent in question had been dissipating for twenty-four hours and was now too faint for normal human senses, but I could discern a weird, flat tang in the air. It was the slightly off, kind of wrong, almost burnt smell that writers of the old tales used to describe as brimstone. When someone or something from another plane suddenly materializes on this one, molecules from the visitor’s dimension get shoehorned into ours, and molecules from our plane get sucked into the visitor’s home to fill up the empty spaces left behind. It’s like the alternate-universe version of swapping spit. And the surrounding air has a neutral but not quite natural feel to it afterward.
Cahill gave me an impatient look. “And?”
“And why don’t you shove an orange cone up your ass and go direct traffic, you doorknob?” I said. “I’m trying to concentrate so I can do your job for you.”
Well, okay, I didn’t really say that. I might have a year earlier, but I’ve been working on my social skills. Instead, I confirmed Cahill’s suspicions. “Something supernatural manifested in this corral.”
“Was this thing summoned?” Sig spoke up, wearing some kind of cream-colored, soft-shelled female outdoor jacket unzipped. She wasn’t bothered by the cold any more than she was by the heat of the huge steaming cup of drive-through coffee that she was gulping instead of sipping.
By way of answering, I fished out my wallet and flashed the driver’s license I was currently using. “Does it say Gandalf on here or something?”
I really did say that one.
Sig gave me a look, and her glare is a formidable thing: icy-eyed, intense, full-lipped, and framed by long golden hair flowing over Scandinavian cheekbones. I stared back and saw how smart and strong and beautiful she was, and smiled.
Seeing that smile, her eyes softened, and the corners of her lips curved upward slightly. Being around Cahill again had us both a little on edge, so I relented. “Yeah, it was probably summoned deliberately. Things that break into our universe without an invitation are rare, and they usually kick up a shitstorm right away. They don’t go bump in the night; they go boom.”
Sig nodded and addressed Cahill without looking at him or using his name. “This missing college student… What was her name again?”
“Lindsey Williams,” Cahill supplied. “I was thinking maybe you’d see her ghost around here.”
“I don’t,” Sig said shortly. She doesn’t particularly like the I-see-dead-people part of being descended from Valkyries, but she doesn’t deny it either. “So, a security camera caught this Lindsey Williams heading this way at three thirty in the morning, right? What was she doing here that early?”
“Normally, I’d say she was meeting someone she shouldn’t,” Cahill said. “Some married professor, maybe, or her BFF’s boyfriend, or her drug dealer. But after a little nudging, her roommate admitted that Lindsey used to sneak out here at night pretty regularly. She said that Lindsey was horse crazy and that the upperclassmen in the equestrian studies program get to choose all the best horses for themselves. So Lindsey liked to come out and take some of her favorites for a night ride.”
“You say it took a little nudging?” Sig’s voice was tight as she repeated the words. Cahill had carried a major torch for Sig back in Clayburg. I couldn’t really blame him for that, but vampires are low-grade telepaths, and as a dhampir, Cahill had some of those abilities. When he’d partially turned, he’d started broadcasting his feelings for Sig and made her experience them too. From what I understand, they flirted around for a few days before going out on a date. Then they had dinner, and at some point while talking about how strange it was that they’d known each other so long and now this new thing was happening, Sig had a distant idea in the back of her mind. Sig is nothing if not strong willed, and the suspicion kept drifting back to the surface of her thoughts despite the tide of hormones trying to bear it away. After dinner, while Sig and Cahill were kissing in the parking lot behind the restaurant, Sig wrapped her arms over Cahill’s shoulders and pulled him close… and broke his neck. Lo and behold, the sudden rush of new feelings that had come into Sig’s life completely disappeared.
Cahill’s neck improved. Relations between him and Sig did not.
Cahill claimed the whole thing had been an accident, a result of having new powers that he didn’t fully understand and was still learning to control, and that was entirely possible. On the other hand, Cahill had used Sig’s unavailability as justification for using other women like Kleenex to wipe off excess sperm while his marriage fell apart. So it was kind of hard to say whether Cahill’s feelings for Sig were real or whether they were just his excuse for being a player, and that was a difficult uncertainty to deal with. If Cahill’s telepathic seduction of a woman he truly cared about had been unintentional, it was tragic, and he was kind of a victim. If it weren’t an accident, Cahill had mentally raped Sig as a means toward physically raping her. People are complex, so there was the whole question of what Cahill had done consciously or subconsciously too, or how much of the event he had reinvented or lied to himself about.
Which was why Sig had compromised. She left Cahill breathing but told him to get his dick out of Dodge if he wanted to stay that way. And Cahill, whatever his other faults, knew Sig well enough to take her seriously. Hence Cahill’s new job running a small police force in a town in upstate New York. I don’t know if Cahill had called Sig reluctantly or if he’d been looking for an excuse, but when he came across something he didn’t know how to handle, he’d called her just the same.
And she had answered. Sig is like that. She tends to have an “it takes a village” attitude toward monster hunting. I have mostly hunted supernatural predators alone, partly because I had no choice and partly because I’m an idiot. But Sig is worth going outside my comfort zone for.
“I gave the roommate a mental push,” Cahill’s voice resonated with a complex mixture of defiance and anger and shame. “If I don’t practice using my powers, I’ll never get better control of them. And this was for a good cause.”
Sig considered that while taking a big slurp of her coffee coco mucho mocco whatever (I’m a coffee purist), then turned her focus on me again. “So, what are we dealing with here, John? I saw your lips do that I-smelled-a-fart twitch they do when you connect some nasty dots. Spill it.”
Being attracted to a smart woman has a lot of rewards. It also comes with a few challenges.
“Yeah, I’ve put some pieces together,” I grumbled. I would have liked another minute to think about them, but I went ahead and squatted down closer to the ground so that I could outline a wide area with a sweeping index finger. “Did you notice how this part of the corral has the outline of hoofprints frozen in the mud much clearer and deeper than the rest of the riding ring?”
They had not.
“This patch of ground got moister than the rest and then froze. I figure the creature that manifested a physical body here used water as its elemental base.”
Cahill made a “time-out” sign and gave Sig an exasperated look. “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! I asked you to bring Professor Peabody here because I don’t know a lot about this stuff, remember? What do you mean, element base?”
Professor Peabody was a cartoon character on the old Rocky and Bullwinkle show who had a lot of doctoral degrees. He was also a talking dog.
Grrrrrrrrr.
Fearless by Elliott James
A modern twist to the Prince Charming tale in this third urban fantasy in the Pax Arcana series.
Fearless (a stand-alone novel and #3 in the Pax Arcana series)
by Elliott James
Release Date: 08/11/15
Publisher: Orbit
Summary:
When your last name is Charming, rescuing virgins comes with the territory — even when the virgin in question is a nineteen-year-old college boy.
Someone, somewhere, has declared war on Kevin Kichida, and that someone has a long list of magical predators on their rolodex. The good news is that Kevin lives in a town where Ted Cahill is the new sheriff and old ally of John Charming.
The attacks on Kevin seem to be a pattern, and the more John and his new team follow that thread, the deeper they find themselves in a maze of supernatural threats, family secrets, and age-old betrayals. The more John learns, the more convinced he becomes that Kevin Kichida isn’t just a victim, he’s a sacrifice waiting to happen. And that thread John’s following? It’s really a fuse…
FEARLESS is the third novel in an urban fantasy series which gives a new twist to the Prince Charming tale. The first two novels are Charming & Daring.
[image error] [image error]
IT TAKES A VILLAGE IDIOT
Once Upon a Time, Ted Cahill had changed. The only real question was whether Cahill had changed too much or not enough.
For example, when I first met Cahill, he had been a mouthy homicide detective in Clayburg, Virginia. Now he was the sheriff of Tatum, New York, which basically meant that he was better paid, had more administrative responsibilities, and was forced to be a lot more polite to a lot more people. But when someone in Cahill’s jurisdiction died in a suspicious manner, he was still a homicide detective at heart. And Tatum and Clayburg had a lot in common: Both towns are nestled in mountains, both towns are hosts to small private universities, and both towns call themselves cities, as if saying the word could make it true. So, how much of the change in Cahill’s status and environment was really all that significant?
Another thing about Cahill that was different—but not unrecognizably so—was his physical appearance. Cahill’s skin was a little paler than when I’d first met him, and I was willing to swear that his freckles were disappearing. His excess body fat had melted off like wax from a lit candle, and his cheekbones were still pronounced, but in an angular way rather than chubby. His brown eyes were still small but now burned with an intensity that might be compelling or disturbing depending on how you looked at them… or how those eyes looked at you. This quality is actually fairly common among supernatural beings struggling with predatory instincts.
And that, of course, was the biggest change, the catalyst for all of the cosmetic alterations in Cahill’s life. Ted Cahill had become a dhampir, a vampire who still retained some of his humanity. It was when trying to figure out how much humanity Cahill still retained (or what humanity meant exactly) that things got confusing.
“So, what about it, wolf boy? Do you smell it?” Cahill had been pushy and snappish ever since we arrived. He seemed to feel like he was doing us a huge favor by letting us help him, because asking for help had been so difficult.
“I smell it,” I confirmed. Sig Norresdotter, Cahill, and I were standing in the middle of a frosty and fenced in horseback riding ring next to Kincaid University’s stables. It was that kind of private school. Tatum in January was a lot colder than Virginia, and I was wearing a grey hoodie under a brown Flying Tiger fighter pilot jacket. I was also wearing black leather gloves, thermals under my dark blue jeans, two pairs of socks beneath my running shoes, and a slight frown.
The scent in question had been dissipating for twenty-four hours and was now too faint for normal human senses, but I could discern a weird, flat tang in the air. It was the slightly off, kind of wrong, almost burnt smell that writers of the old tales used to describe as brimstone. When someone or something from another plane suddenly materializes on this one, molecules from the visitor’s dimension get shoehorned into ours, and molecules from our plane get sucked into the visitor’s home to fill up the empty spaces left behind. It’s like the alternate-universe version of swapping spit. And the surrounding air has a neutral but not quite natural feel to it afterward.
Cahill gave me an impatient look. “And?”
“And why don’t you shove an orange cone up your ass and go direct traffic, you doorknob?” I said. “I’m trying to concentrate so I can do your job for you.”
Well, okay, I didn’t really say that. I might have a year earlier, but I’ve been working on my social skills. Instead, I confirmed Cahill’s suspicions. “Something supernatural manifested in this corral.”
“Was this thing summoned?” Sig spoke up, wearing some kind of cream-colored, soft-shelled female outdoor jacket unzipped. She wasn’t bothered by the cold any more than she was by the heat of the huge steaming cup of drive-through coffee that she was gulping instead of sipping.
By way of answering, I fished out my wallet and flashed the driver’s license I was currently using. “Does it say Gandalf on here or something?”
I really did say that one.
Sig gave me a look, and her glare is a formidable thing: icy-eyed, intense, full-lipped, and framed by long golden hair flowing over Scandinavian cheekbones. I stared back and saw how smart and strong and beautiful she was, and smiled.
Seeing that smile, her eyes softened, and the corners of her lips curved upward slightly. Being around Cahill again had us both a little on edge, so I relented. “Yeah, it was probably summoned deliberately. Things that break into our universe without an invitation are rare, and they usually kick up a shitstorm right away. They don’t go bump in the night; they go boom.”
Sig nodded and addressed Cahill without looking at him or using his name. “This missing college student… What was her name again?”
“Lindsey Williams,” Cahill supplied. “I was thinking maybe you’d see her ghost around here.”
“I don’t,” Sig said shortly. She doesn’t particularly like the I-see-dead-people part of being descended from Valkyries, but she doesn’t deny it either. “So, a security camera caught this Lindsey Williams heading this way at three thirty in the morning, right? What was she doing here that early?”
“Normally, I’d say she was meeting someone she shouldn’t,” Cahill said. “Some married professor, maybe, or her BFF’s boyfriend, or her drug dealer. But after a little nudging, her roommate admitted that Lindsey used to sneak out here at night pretty regularly. She said that Lindsey was horse crazy and that the upperclassmen in the equestrian studies program get to choose all the best horses for themselves. So Lindsey liked to come out and take some of her favorites for a night ride.”
“You say it took a little nudging?” Sig’s voice was tight as she repeated the words. Cahill had carried a major torch for Sig back in Clayburg. I couldn’t really blame him for that, but vampires are low-grade telepaths, and as a dhampir, Cahill had some of those abilities. When he’d partially turned, he’d started broadcasting his feelings for Sig and made her experience them too. From what I understand, they flirted around for a few days before going out on a date. Then they had dinner, and at some point while talking about how strange it was that they’d known each other so long and now this new thing was happening, Sig had a distant idea in the back of her mind. Sig is nothing if not strong willed, and the suspicion kept drifting back to the surface of her thoughts despite the tide of hormones trying to bear it away. After dinner, while Sig and Cahill were kissing in the parking lot behind the restaurant, Sig wrapped her arms over Cahill’s shoulders and pulled him close… and broke his neck. Lo and behold, the sudden rush of new feelings that had come into Sig’s life completely disappeared.
Cahill’s neck improved. Relations between him and Sig did not.
Cahill claimed the whole thing had been an accident, a result of having new powers that he didn’t fully understand and was still learning to control, and that was entirely possible. On the other hand, Cahill had used Sig’s unavailability as justification for using other women like Kleenex to wipe off excess sperm while his marriage fell apart. So it was kind of hard to say whether Cahill’s feelings for Sig were real or whether they were just his excuse for being a player, and that was a difficult uncertainty to deal with. If Cahill’s telepathic seduction of a woman he truly cared about had been unintentional, it was tragic, and he was kind of a victim. If it weren’t an accident, Cahill had mentally raped Sig as a means toward physically raping her. People are complex, so there was the whole question of what Cahill had done consciously or subconsciously too, or how much of the event he had reinvented or lied to himself about.
Which was why Sig had compromised. She left Cahill breathing but told him to get his dick out of Dodge if he wanted to stay that way. And Cahill, whatever his other faults, knew Sig well enough to take her seriously. Hence Cahill’s new job running a small police force in a town in upstate New York. I don’t know if Cahill had called Sig reluctantly or if he’d been looking for an excuse, but when he came across something he didn’t know how to handle, he’d called her just the same.
And she had answered. Sig is like that. She tends to have an “it takes a village” attitude toward monster hunting. I have mostly hunted supernatural predators alone, partly because I had no choice and partly because I’m an idiot. But Sig is worth going outside my comfort zone for.
“I gave the roommate a mental push,” Cahill’s voice resonated with a complex mixture of defiance and anger and shame. “If I don’t practice using my powers, I’ll never get better control of them. And this was for a good cause.”
Sig considered that while taking a big slurp of her coffee coco mucho mocco whatever (I’m a coffee purist), then turned her focus on me again. “So, what are we dealing with here, John? I saw your lips do that I-smelled-a-fart twitch they do when you connect some nasty dots. Spill it.”
Being attracted to a smart woman has a lot of rewards. It also comes with a few challenges.
“Yeah, I’ve put some pieces together,” I grumbled. I would have liked another minute to think about them, but I went ahead and squatted down closer to the ground so that I could outline a wide area with a sweeping index finger. “Did you notice how this part of the corral has the outline of hoofprints frozen in the mud much clearer and deeper than the rest of the riding ring?”
They had not.
“This patch of ground got moister than the rest and then froze. I figure the creature that manifested a physical body here used water as its elemental base.”
Cahill made a “time-out” sign and gave Sig an exasperated look. “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! I asked you to bring Professor Peabody here because I don’t know a lot about this stuff, remember? What do you mean, element base?”
Professor Peabody was a cartoon character on the old Rocky and Bullwinkle show who had a lot of doctoral degrees. He was also a talking dog.
Grrrrrrrrr.
About Elliott James: An army brat and gypsy scholar, ELLIOTT JAMES is currently living in the Blue Ridge mountains of southwest Virginia. He’s been an avid reader since the age of three (or that’s what his family swears anyhow), and he has an abiding interest in mythology, martial arts, live music, hiking, and used bookstores.
Praise for Pax Arcana books:
“The Pax Arcana books are seriously good reads. Action, humor, and heart with unexpected twists and turns. If you are (like me) waiting for the next Butcher or Hearne — pick up Elliot James. Then you can bite your nails waiting for the next James, too.”—Patricia Briggs, New York Times #1 bestselling author of the Mercy Thompson series
“Loved it! Charming is a giant gift basket of mythology and lore delivered by a brilliant new voice in urban fantasy. Elliott James tells stories that are action-packed, often amusing, and always entertaining.”—Kevin Hearne, author of Hounded on Charming
“I loved this book from start to finish. Exciting and innovative, Charming is a great introduction to a world I look forward to spending a lot more time in.”—New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire on Charming
“James’s world is rich and complex and well worth diving into.”—Richard Kadrey on Charming
“In a saturated literary realm, James’s tale stands out for the gritty, believable world he builds…This is masculine urban fantasy in the vein of Jim Butcher and Mark del Franco.”—Booklist on Charming
July 25, 2015
July 20, 2015
The Drowning Game Cover Reveal
Today’s the day! Check out the cover of THE DROWNING GAME:
They said she was armed.
They said she was dangerous.
They were right.
Petty Moshen spent eighteen years of her life as a prisoner in her own home, training with military precision for everything, ready for anything. She can disarm, dismember, and kill—and now, for the first time ever, she is free.
Her paranoid father is dead, his extreme dominance and rules a thing of the past, but his influence remains as strong as ever. When his final will reveals a future more terrible than her captive past, Petty knows she must escape—by whatever means necessary.
But when Petty learns the truth behind her father’s madness—and her own family—the reality is worse than anything she could have imagined. On the road and in over her head, the fight for Petty’s life has just begun.
Fans of female-powered thrillers will love debut author LS Hawker and her suspenseful tale of a young woman on the run for her future…and from the nightmares of her past.
Pre-order from HarperCollins or these fine retailers
Release date: September 22, 2015
Print books available mid-October
Excerpt
Since he’d died on his stomach, the EMTs had turned Dad onto his back. He was in full rigor mortis, so his upper lip was mashed into his gums and curled into a sneer, exposing his khaki-colored teeth. His hands were spread in front of his face, palms out. Dad’s eyes stared up and to the left and his entire face was grape-pop purple.
What struck me when I first saw him—after I inhaled my gum—was that he appeared to be warding off a demon. I should have waited until the mortician was done with him, because I knew I’d never get that image out of my mind.
I walked out of Dad’s room on unsteady feet, determined not to cry in front of these strangers. The deputy and the sheriff stood outside my bedroom, examining the door to it. Both of them looked confused.
“Petty,” Sheriff Bloch said.
I stopped in the hall, feeling even more violated with them so close to my personal items and underwear.
“Yes?”
“Is this your bedroom?”
I nodded.
Sheriff and deputy made eye contact. The coroner paused at the top of the stairs to listen in. This was what my dad had always talked about—the judgment of busybody outsiders, their belief that somehow they needed to have a say in the lives of people they’d never even met and knew nothing about.
The three men seemed to expect me to say something, but I was tired of talking. Since I’d never done much of it, I’d had no idea how exhausting it was.
The deputy said, “Why are there six deadbolts on the outside of your door?”
It was none of his business, but I had nothing to be ashamed of.
“So Dad could lock me in, of course.”
July 8, 2015
Just the Tip
I was not a great cocktail waitress.
My junior year of college, I worked at a bar called the Country Playhouse, and the very first guy I waited on ordered eight draws of beer for him and his friends. I scampered like an excited puppy up to the bar and put in my order, where the bartender loaded up my tray. I balanced it on my hand like I’d been taught, and moved carefully toward the man’s table, doing what I like to think of as the drunken-toddler walk. Relieved and over-confident that I’d made it, I said, “Here’s your beer!” and rather than setting down the tray, I tilted it as if preparing to shove a giant pie in his face. In my memory, I see it in slow motion, all 96 ounces of frosty suds cascading over him like the ocean waves over Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity. I soaked him, and soaked him good. As you might have guessed, he did not leave me a tip (not a monetary one, anyway. More like “Here’s a tip–give up cocktail waitressing!”)
An inauspicious start, but I got into the groove and stopped drenching customers. I loved my job, except for Thursday nights. We always had a packed house those nights, which would normally be a good thing, but this was not normal. This was Lord of the Flies the female version–the clientele was exclusively sweaty, screaming, seething, writhing women, because Thursday night was male nude dancer night.
Thursday nights generally amounted to volunteer work, because women don’t tip. You could always count on at least one bachelorette party on Thursdays, so it was 25 shots of Jack Daniel’s. Twenty-five Kamikazes. Twenty-five foo-foo drinks. With sugar and alcohol swirling in their lust-addled brains, these women transformed into pre-humanoid hunters, gathered around a hormone fire, using finger snaps and snarls to get the wait staff’s attention, grunting and hooting to “It’s Raining Men.”
And like I said, it would be packed, standing room only, moist and sweltering in there all year round. When I remember those nights, I see them through a haze of cigarette smoke and skank. The dancers were nicely built, no doubt about it. But they were glazed with a patina of grodiness that lacquers my psyche to this day. And they loved to torment the waitresses. There you’d be, trying to navigate the narrow alleys between tables with a tray of 25 tequila shots, 25 shriveled slivers of what might have once been limes and 25 piles of salt, and the “dancers” would jump off the stage and block your way in all their glistening, tumescent, herpes-coated glory. This was the only time in my life I threatened a man with the Lorena Bobbit treatment and truly meant it.
It was the ’80s, my friends, and back then we knew how to convolute the drinking experience. Some of the popular drinks back then were
Long Island Iced Tea
Wine spritzer
Fuzzy Navel
Sloe Comfortable Screw
Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers
Amaretto sour
Malt Duck
Sex on the Beach
Vodka gimlet
Strawberry daiquiri
Electric Lemonade
Bellagio, Riunite and Boone’s Farm wines
Everclear Toilet Bowl Punch
Cum in a Hot Tub
What drinks did I miss? Send me a comment with your ’80s beverage of choice.
June 25, 2015
The New Band Name Game
New band names usually bubble up spontaneously. For instance, my friend Andrew sent me a text in which he inadvertently thumbed the numeral 9 instead of the @ symbol. His next text said, “Disregard the 9.” Thus a new band name was born.
If you’d like to play, use the hashtag #NewBandName when posting or tweeting your contribution.
Below is a partial list of #NewBandNames friends and I have come up with over the last couple of years. Enjoy!
A Sudden Hair
All the Suddens
Arrows and Bras
Assassinology
Bag of Ropes
Balloon Schrapnel
Barking Soybeans
Calculus of Despair
Cheese and Soap
Coffee Puppets
CowKid
Deconstructed Guacamole
Dessert Peanut
Disregard the 9
Disregard the Goat
Drowning in Mannequins
Failed Mime
Filled with Spoons
Give Your Duck to Me
Goat-toothed Waitress
Gordon the Outside
Gratuitous Vowels
Groovious
Grumble of Pugs
Happy Faces of Destruction
I Called You Mustard
I Love Fub
I Punched Your Bagel
I Sense Dill
Justin Beiber’s Monkey
Meat Facial
Meatcandy
Peasant of Plot
Pun Locker
Purse Never Listens
Quarter-Hearted
Radial Obedience
Rocking the Hobo
Russian Hedgehog
Sad Bacon
Series One Ladle
Smoky Phlegm
Smothering Love Manifesto
Strengthen Your Thumbs
SugarDirt
Surprise Cantaloupe
Surprise Uncle
Swing Odd
Tell Me My Tell
The Nosesigh
The Original Dan
Tiny Space Sweat
Tooty Soups
Trafficking Mayonnaise
Uncomfortable Synonyms
Unnecessarily Enthusiastic
Yeah That’s Yeah That’s Yeah
You’re Dumb and I’m Sleepy
YouWeGo
