Kate Rothwell's Blog, page 19

now for the promo-y stuff, but not too bad, so calm down

1.


yup, this is the goofy one.


I had such good time writing a short contemporary for the m/m group, I wrote another novella.



This one's called Game On and it's about a bright but stuffy lawyer and an adult who acts as like a teenager.


* * *



Grant
knows his fellow lawyers think of him as a calm but distant person. At
the moment he’s unusually furious: some guy has been swimming in his pool.



Ned visits pools to jump-start his creativity. When one homeowner flips out, Ned's apologetic--and intrigued.



When
they meet again, Ned decides he has to convince Grant he’s not trying
to ruin his life and career, and that the attraction of opposites can be
very good...very, very good.



* * *



Anyway, Game On is cheap--99 cents.
It's a novella, although reading it will take longer than drinking a cup
of coffee so you get a far better deal than you would at Starbucks or
even Dunkin Donuts. (I'm convinced that comparing coffee to books is legit. Both offer breaks or supplements to routine.)



It's over at Smashwords and Amazon and Barnes and Noble --although
the cute cover Linda did for me seems to have vanished there.
Hmm. As soon as I get my act together, it'll be at All Romance Ebooks.



If you read it, let me know what you think.




2. Remember over at Amazon and Barnes and Noble when I said I'd donate to the AIDS/Lifecycle? I ended up getting some ad space at Regretsy with my donation.
I love seeing my book up on that page. So perfect. And the title I decided to push, UNNATURAL CALAMITIES, fits that page so well, I had to take a screenshot to show you:




This is actually at the members only section of Regretsy ** so I might be sued for unfair use or something.



Warning: If you go over there, you'll see that I've edited Mr. Clown by adding a duck and some brown covering in the groinal region. In other words, this is truly NSFW.



Even when I snicker at him, I admire a guy who's got the cajones (well...) to put this out there. He's not ashamed of who he is and what he enjoys OR he just has fun making people go W.T.F.



Either way, the world is richer for his presence--certainly the internet is.

__________________

** to enter the site, type CF4L in the box.

also happy birthday to me

I have over 350 greetings on Facebook, telling me that I should probably remove my birthdate.

It's my oldest boy's birthday too--he's way too old.

SBD (how many months late edition part two)

hey how come no one's commenting on my JR Ward column? 

I'm listening to Going Postal again, read by Stephen Briggs.  It's a fine comfort read. I used to grab Jane Austen when I needed a familiar voice. 

months later

There's a whole page devoted to bloggers who write "wow it has been a while." If I find it, I will post it. I went to look for it and got millions of hits when I entered "sorry I've been gone so long."



 In the meantime, I have to find somewhere to park this list of my books and this lets me. 

How have you been? Fine, I hope?

   

As Summer Devon

The Knight’s
Challenge, contemporary dragon, novella, Samhain

Learning
Charity, gaslight historical novella, Samhain

Revealing
Skills, fantasy, Samhain

Taken Unaware,
contemporary alien, Samhain

Unnatural
Calamities, contemporary, Samhain

Direct Deposit,
contemporary novella, Total-e-bound

Perfection,
contemporary, light paranormal novella, Ellora’s Cave

Invisible
Touch, contemporary light paranormal novella, Ellora’s Cave

Irrational
Arousal, contemporary light paranormal, Ellora’s Cave

Futurelove,
time travel novella, Ellora’s Cave

The Mad Baron,
historical, Liquid Silver

Powder of Love,
historical, light paranormal, Loose Id

Her Outlandish
Stranger, historical, time travel, Ellora’s Cave

Goodbye
Phillip, contemporary novella (m/m)




Coming in 2013 from Samhain: Taming the Bander, contemporary shapeshifter m/m




With Bonnie
Dee:

Seducing
Stephen (m/m) historical , Loose-Id

The Gentleman
and the Rogue (m/m) historical, Loose-Id

The Nobleman
and the Spy (m/m),historical, Loose-Id

House of
Mirrors (m/m),historical, Loose-Id

The
Psychic and the Sleuth (m/m), historical, Samhain

Serious Play
(m/f),contemporary, Carina

(audible
book version!)

Coming in 2013 from Samhain: Fugitive Heart (m/f) contemporary

 

With Linda
Gayle

Claws on Silk,
shapeshifter historical, Loose Id

 

As Kate Rothwell

Somebody
Wonderful, gaslight historical, Kensington

Somebody To
Love, gaslight historical, Kensington

Someone to Cherish,
gaslight historical

Thank You, Mrs. M,
contemporary

 Seducing Miss Dunaway, gaslight
historical novella --FREE

Protecting
Miss Samuels, gaslight historical, novella

The Last Mind
Traveler, fantasy

Short SBD

I'm going through all the Rhage and Hhorror and Ihmpohtence books. Yay J.R.Ward! It's a fun world, kinda flat, kinda odd with the rules which bend and stretch, except when they don't. But still, creative as can be and addictive. I like the fact that there aren't excuses made for bad behavior. Reasons for it, yes, but no one lets anyone get away with bull in the stories. This is not high literature and it is perfect summer stuff--assuming you don't mind a lot of dead bodies (they're not real people though. The usual dead guy is an evil minion called a Lesser, which means he smells like baby powder--a scent which JR Ward apparently HATES--and has black blood and has no soul so, ok. Dead is good.)



Here is your basic hero: I'm a tough male who wears shitkickers and a wife-beater and leathers and I do fist bumps wit my bros. I don't act like a nancy [which makes me wonder -- Is JR English? Nancy? Plus all the talk of going to the loo.?] I kill cartoonishly bad (but so satisfying) evil Lessers. Two seconds to a half hour after I  meet a particular hot female/woman, I give off dark spices and am filled with the need to mate and come a whole lot. Lots and lots and lots of sex and coming and coming and . . . wait a sec! I am now attached to a female/woman. My eyes prickle??! I might be crying! I am a nancy! whereupon some brother bonks me longside the head so I don't have to feel all girly and shit. Phew. But really. MY woman is ALL. Rar. (also I will need to be reminded of this every few books when some other tough male mates up)



Going through a series nonstop, you tend to see things that are repeated (like males grabbing females' hands and rubbing on the erection and saying "see what you do to me?" any time some woman says "you don' wan me," that's what the guy does.)



Does it sound like I hate them? No. I do not. I am wading through them like the series is the only chocolate bar in the world and I am a PMSing woman. I swear, I don't understand why I love them so, but that's for a day when I am not gorged on chocolate. The only fear I have (should be Pheahre) is that I'll start writing or talking like those characters. That is not what I want, thank you.



To clarify: I am not not a snob. It is just that Ward's style is so distinctive, I can see it rubbing off ( like that dark mating spice the guys rub on their gals). She's one of those writers whose imitators are easily spotted. Also, to be perfectly honest, some of the slang annoyed me

But then again. . .

I am still loving this Charlaine Harris book.

SBD might have to give up this one...or not

I'm listening to Jack Higgins, Bloody Passage, and this thing is dated. Not only does everyone smoke and drink all the time -- I got no problem with that -- but the gay character is called an "it", the one woman is gross, the other woman, the sister, delicate and blind and incapable of caring for herself. The main character a jerk. (I imagine the gross woman will end up falling under his spell.) I don't mind alpha, to a degree, but this guy is an uber-cool, superhuman strong and a proficient pill. The whole smart-ass thing got old with Spenser, too, and he was usually funnier.



I've just done a few JR Ward books recently and they're the same kind of guy. Honestly, they strike me as one-note humans. They also smoke too.



It's not badly written, better than the Pattersons I've read.



I'm guessing this was written in the 70s. I have to check. be back.  Umm. Whu? 1999? But it seems like the Soviet Union is still operating. Really? That recent.



I did like the start of the thing: he's being shot at and gets annoyed when the sharpshooter breaks the wine. I should wait it out a bit.

hey! free book! go get it while you can.

My new book (as described in the previous entry) is now free! Go on and get a copy. 
 You don't even have to read it, although I don't mind if you do--unless you hate it. In that case, we'll both pretend you never saw  it, okay?**



Turns out I'm doing this freebie thing wrong. I should have finished the next book in the series, put a bit of that at the end of the book1 novella and then immediately put book 2 up for sale at the same time  I did the freebie for book 1.



The thing is, I haven't finished book 2. I know it looks like I turn/churn these things out, but really, I don't. Next time I'll know better. In fact, I am working on a series with Linda Gayle. We'll be experts at putting out the books by then.



**actually, after all this time, I really am ok with bad reviews, as long as they aren't ad hominem.

My new book!

Hey, check it out! Summer has a new ebook, Elemental Man, and here's a description of it:

 



A novella about a superhero. 

 





Caleb is an ordinary guy...except for his bizarre ability
to adapt to any situation. Really. Anything goes. Fire and water are no
problem for him.



Someone is shoving innocents into dangerous
situations and Caleb is forced to act again and again. It's up to him to
stop the person who's trying to draw him out. He already suspected his
attractive neighbor is his stalker and then she demonstrates the rare
ability of seeing him as he adapts.



After Caleb confronts her,
he has another problem on his hands. He's told the innocent civilian
Melinda far about himself
and she apparently has some extraordinary skills herself. Her rare
skills might make Melinda a target of the stalker who's after Caleb.



And,
thanks to his mistake about her identity, the nuisance of an agency
that controls his life has been alerted to her existence as well. Caleb
decides he has to protect and hide her from his friends and foes. Maybe
she won't notice he's pretending they've got a future together.li



* * *

For a limited time, only available at Amazon.



If you've gotten this far, here's something else about the novella: it'll be free for a couple of days, starting Friday night.  



This is a self-published book. I also just signed a contract with Samhain for a new m/m contemporary.

I miss this blog and SBD (Ilona Andrews)

I miss it the way you miss someone you see at work every day who vanishes. Your world isn't changed because this isn't a close friend, only someone you nod to. It's all part of the ritual of your morning and when it's gone, you feel slightly bereft, for maybe ten minutes the first time, five the second time, and then it's just an almost unnoticeable ache at the bottom of a single breath.



That's like most of the jobs I've had--when it's time to go, I gently remove myself from them. I reduce hours, cut back days and then, eventually, slip away. It's less jarring than the big goodbye party. Not sure why I do it that way, but that's how I operate. Unless I get hit by a bus, I imagine that's how I'll slip out of existence.



Lucky for me, I can just come by and say hi here. I keep forgetting that. This ritual nod only requires me. It's a look in the mirror.



****

SBD I'm doing Ilona Andrews. I love the unabashed bloodthirstiness of the characters. I like the writing--definitely smooth even with two people doing the work.



I'm ready for the next book but now I've run out of them. Good thing. If it kept up, I'd have to just hand my next royalty check over to Andrew and Ilona. I'm avoiding the other series they wrote because contrary to what you might think, I do have a life, sort of.



Chances are I'll mix up Frost with Andrews, with a couple of other writers of urban fantasy. But I think, at the moment, I like Andrews best. The world is amazing, the whole magic on/off is fun and, like I said, no apologizing for creating corpses. If we're going for a whole new world, might as well let the old rules go. This is definitely a video game life. Also Kate (fine name) is changing through the books. She's growing up and is less act first think later now. That's okay. Also I like the easter eggs. Lots of Princess Bride and other things thrown in there. Kate's a heck of a lot more intriguing than old Buttercup.