C.S. Harris's Blog, page 16

Daily Deal

What Angels Fear is the top Kindle Daily Deal at Amazon today. Amazon actually came to my publishers and asked to do this special, which is pretty amazing. This is a one day only deal.

I have a confession to make: I have never actually bought an ebook. I do download a lot of out-of-print books that I use in my research, but I simply prefer to hold a real book in my hand. Steve has a couple of Kindles and since he's a voracious reader and loves hardcovers, I encourage him to get e-books in a forlorn effort to cut down on the stacks of books that accumulate around the house. We spent a chunk of this past weekend reorganizing and culling the books in his office because it was getting ridiculous; four big bags of books went to the library sale. My office is next.

What about you? Do you read ebooks? Do you find they've changed your buying pattern in any way?

A Sneak Peek at WHO BURIES THE DEAD

Wondering what happens next? Here's a sneak peek at the first chapter of the tenth Sebastian St. Cyr mystery, Who Buries the Dead...  
Chapter 1  Sunday, 21 March 1813 They called it Bloody Bridge.It lay at the end of a dark, winding lane, far beyond the comforting flicker of the oil lamps of Sloane Square, beyond the last of the tumbledown cottages at the edge of a vast stretch of fields that showed only black in the moonless night. Narrow and hemmed in on both sides by high walls, the bridge was built of brick, worn and crumbling with age and slippery with moss where the elms edging the rivulet cast a deep, cold shade.Cian O’Neal tried to avoid this place, even in daylight. It had been Molly’s idea to come here, for on the far side of the bridge lay a deserted barn with a warm, soft hayloft that beckoned to young lovers in need. But now as the wind tossed the elms along the creek and brought the distant, mournful howl of a dog, Cian felt the hard pulsing urgency that had driven him here begin to ebb.“Maybe this ain’t such a good idea, Molly,” he said, his step lagging. “The barn, I mean.”She swung to face him, dark eyes shiny in a plump, merry face. “What’s the matter, Cian?” She pressed her warm, yielding body against his, her voice husky. “You havin’ second thoughts?”“No. It’s just…”The wind gusted up stronger, banging a shutter somewhere in the night, and he jerked.To his shame, he saw enlightenment dawn in her face, and she gave a trill of laughter. “You’re scared.”“No I ain’t,” he said, even though they both knew it for a lie. He was a big lad, eighteen next month and strong and hale. But at the moment, he felt like a wee tike frightened by old Irish tales of the Dullahan.She caught his hand in both of hers and backed down the lane ahead of him, pulling him toward the bridge. “Come on, then,” she said. “How ’bout if I cross first?”It had rained earlier in the evening, a brief but heavy downpour that left the newly budding leaves of the trees dripping moisture and the lane slippery with mud. He felt an icy tickle at the base of his neck and tried to think about the sweet warmth of the hayloft and the way Molly’s soft, eager body would feel beneath his.They were close enough to the bridge now that Cian could see it quite clearly, its single arch a deeper black against the roiling darkness of the sky. But something wasn’t quite right, and he felt his scalp prickle, his breath catch as the silhouette of a man’s head loomed before them.“What is it?” Molly asked, the laughter draining from her face as she whirled around and Cian started to scream.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

I've always loved St. Patrick's Day--even before I knew I have a smidgen of Irish in my family tree. New Orleans throws a great St. Patrick's Day parade, complete with flying beads--and cabbages and potatoes and carrots! All the makings for an Irish stew. (Yes, they really do throw cabbages off the floats, and believe me they hurt if they hit you in the head!)

There are also walking clubs of men in tuxes or kilts who hand out roses in exchange for a kiss. It's a fun day--in fact, I enjoy it more than most of the Carnival parades, largely because of the atmosphere.
These pictures are actually from a few years ago; we didn't go this past Saturday, as it was misty and cool and our elder daughter had just driven in for a long weekend from San Antonio. We decided to simply curl up with hot chocolate and spend the day talking. And talking and talking....

Sebastian and Hero's London: Tower Hill

As readers of the Sebastian St. Cyr series know, Paul Gibson lives on Tower Hill. So what was Tower Hill? Well, here's a print (from a late eighteenth century drawing) of one of the old houses on Tower Hill:

Basically, Tower Hill was (and is) the area just to the north of the Tower of London. In Sebastian's time, it was still occupied by old, one and two story, mainly stone houses that had been there since the days when the Tower was the site of important executions. Very few people were actually beheaded inside the Tower itself; most died on a scaffold erected on Tower Hill.

To the east of Tower Hill lay St. Katherine's, where Gibson takes his eventful walk in Why Kings Confess, and which I plan to write about soon. Like St. Katherine's, Tower Hill was in the London Borough of the Tower Hamlets. And remember, in Sebastian's time, the Tower still had its moat. Here's a print from 1820:

Note to Ali, Veronica, and Suzanne: you all had the same question in the comments on the last post; I've answered it there. Life has been a bit hectic this past week, and tomorrow my daughter is driving in from San Antonio for a long weekend.

It's Sebastian Day!

So, maybe to most people it's Mardi Gras or just plain Tuesday, but today is also the pub day for Why Kings Confess. (Thanks to my reader, Nana, for the "Sebastian Day" idea.)

I'm anxious to hear what you all think. Personally, I really like what happens with Gibson in this book, but I'm not saying any more than that....

Oh--and Happy Mardi Gras!

Carnival!

It's Carnival time here in New Orleans, which is a really, really bad time to have a book coming out.
The next installment in the Sebastian St. Cyr series, Why Kings Confess, hits the stores tomorrow ... except in New Orleans, where all the bookstores will be closed for Mardi Gras!

I originally had a booksigning scheduled at Garden District Book Shop for Saturday the 15th, then we realized, Oops, that's the day of the St. Patrick's Day Parade (which is a really, really great parade here, by the way--they also throw beads). So the signing has now been rescheduled for Saturday, 29 March. We couldn't do it the 22nd because that's the weekend of the Tennessee Williams Festival. Did I mention that March is a seriously bad month for my books to be released every year?

So, even though I won't see it, tomorrow is the day!

WHAT ANGELS FEAR e-book on Sale for a Limited Time Only!

As part of their promotion for the upcoming release of Why Kings Confess, NAL has temporarily dropped the price on the e-book version of What Angels Fear, the first in the Sebastian St. Cyr series.
So for the next two weeks, you can buy the Kindle version of Angels at  Amazon for only $2.99!

Or the Nook version of Angels at  Barnes and Noble for $2.99.

You can buy the iBooks version for $2.99 at iTunes or iBooks, and I'd link to it, only I can't figure out how :-(

You can also buy it at Kobo for $2.99.

All of these places were supposed to have the new cover as part of the promotion, but someone goofed and they don't, although I'm told that should be corrected soon.

I had to talk long and hard to get this promotion, so fingers crossed that it pays off and attracts lots of new readers. Tell your friends. Share it on Facebook and Twitter. Help spread the word. Because this deal will only last two weeks, and then the price will go back up.

The London of Sebastian St. Cyr: Maps of Old London

When it comes to the topography of early 19th century London, this tattered tome is my bible. Based on a survey by Richard Horwood from 1792-9, the map was updated by William Faden in 1813, which makes it perfect for the Sebastian St. Cyr series. It is beyond wonderful; not only does it show all the streets, lanes, courts and alleys, but it even shows individual buildings with street numbers! Unfortunately for those of us with aging eyes, Faden's originally larger map segments have been reduced for publication to pages that only are about 8" x 12", so these days I find myself reaching for a magnifying glass a lot.

When I first started What Angels Fear, I had yet to discover the London Topographical Society and had to make do with an 18th century map of London and the Greenwood map of 1827, which is on line here (that's a screenshot from the Greenwood map, above).


Although London in 1827 was amazingly different from London of 1811-13, I still use it sometimes because you can really zoom in on a location and print it out. (Once upon a time I had the entire map printed out and mounted on giant sections of foam board, but then this little thing called Katrina flooded my office, and that was the end of that.)

Also online is John Rocque's 1746 map of London, which is here. It's also available in book form from the same people who print the 1813 Regency map.

To give you an idea of the kind of detail these maps provide, here is Hyde Park corner from 1746, showing the turnpike, the Tiburn gallows, and the nearby spot where, the map tells us, "soldiers are shot."

I love these maps and spend hours pouring over them just for fun. Some of us are easily amused.

Card Games

It's plotting time again, which means that I've taken over the dining room table to play with my scene cards.

I'm a very visual plotter. Each card is a scene, and each suspect has his or her own color. Sometimes I give a suspect their own color of card, but this time I simply used little colored flags. The colored Post-It notes on the top of the scene cards also mean something--pink ones are dead bodies, and orange ones are fight/attack scenes. All of this color enables me to see the story arc and structure at a glance. And the blue cards? Those are clues or twists that are still looking for their proper place in the scheme of things; this is very early stage, with only the first dozen or so cards on the far left actually in place. The rest are still in a holding pattern.

This book is proving to be a bit different as it has a very involved "backstory"--the details of the victim's life before she is killed--that also needs to be worked out. Of course, in any mystery, there are always two stories going on at the same time--the events the reader and the detective see, and all the stuff that's happening off stage.

As for a title, that's still open. I'm thinking about using the word "silence" in there, or maybe "children," perhaps with a WHEN or a WHERE, but I'm still waiting for inspiration. Hopefully it will strike soon.

As for Angel, his tests results are back and his numbers are stable, so it's good news!

Finished....Again

I've finally finished the revisions of Who Buries the Dead requested by my editor. Now on to book #11!

To celebrate, I took the afternoon off and went outside to tackle my winter-killed garden. Fortunately, the weather cooperated, so I had a pleasant afternoon of cutting back roses (I'm late; in New Orleans roses get their heavy pruning in late January-early February) and sighing over dead plants. I could spend the rest of the month working on my garden and still have a million things to do, so I'm going to need to pace myself.

The eastern side of my house is a narrow, fifty foot butterfly garden, and it's almost all dead. Lots of replanting to do!

On another note, tomorrow we take Angel back to the vet to have his kidney levels tested. Wish us luck.