Kelly Meding's Blog, page 5

RIP Cory Monteith.

RIP Cory Monteith.

Requiem for the Dead: Cover Reveal, Copy, and a Release Date!

For all the Dreg City fans who've been waiting patiently since last January for the next Evy Stone novel, it's almost here!  I am beyond thrilled with the cover created for me by Robin Ludwig Design, Inc.  It's fabulous and perfect and it fits with the rest of the series.

I'm so proud to show it off!

She's died twice while protecting her city…and she'd do it again to save the people she loves.
After a deadly, artificial infection forces the vampire Families into a self-imposed isolation, the city's protective Watchtower forces are depleted by one third, leaving humans and shifters to shoulder the burden.  Human enforcer Evangeline Stone is determined to find a way to help her vampire allies, but she already has her hands full—investigating an escalating series of goblin attacks, dealing with her half-werewolf lover, locating three missing werewolf teenagers, and learning to trust her non-human coworkers.
When a potential cure for the vampires' infection is given to her by an unlikely source, it's just as quickly stolen—collateral damage in a power play within the were-cat Clan that leaves one human ally dead and another horribly injured.  With Wyatt Truman still adjusting to his new life as a half-werewolf, Phineas missing in action, and her shifter allies crippled by internal anarchy, Evy has to rely on her own strength and instincts to steal back the cure, stop a murderer, and to save the Watchtower before it's destroyed from the inside out.
 

 Marcus!  *grin* I love that grumpy puss.

Since I don't know exactly how all of the uploading to Amazon and B&N works, this is a tentative release date, but I hope to have this puppy ready for sale by September 16th.

What do you think? Excited for some shapeshifter drama?

Requiem For The Dead: Snippet

I haven't posted a snippet from Dreg City 5 since February, so now felt like a good time.

Coming soon to a Kindle/Nook/Kobo/iPad near you....

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I turned onto Cottage Place and slowed a bit as we passed the empty storefront that had once been Old World Teas.  Last month we'd busted the mage who ran the shop and given him a non-choice about getting the hell out of town.  Brutus was a freelance magic worker who did spells and enchanted crystals, and he'd taken work from Wyatt on occasion.  He'd also taken work from Walter Thackery and the Fey, and we were sympathetic enough to his sense of capitalism and the need to make a living that we didn't just kill him outright.
The shop had been empty ever since.
A few blocks down, I spotted the familiar shape of my old residence.  The building housed a couple of businesses, including a kitschy jewelry store, as well as the walk-up apartments on the second and third floors.  I'd lived in one for four years with my old Triad partners Jesse and Ash.  We'd abandoned it for good several months ago, but I couldn't stop a pang of guilt as I thought of my dead partners.  And grief, too.           "Ash's birthday is next week," Wyatt said suddenly.             "Is it?"  I was never good at remembering things like that, and our random birthday celebrations usually involved cheap cake and cheaper liquor, followed by maudlin comments about being happy to have made it to another birthday.             "Yeah.  She'd have been twenty-eight."             It was a good age, since few Triad Hunters ever lived past twenty-two—kind of ironic, since that's how old I was when I died my first death.  My new body was twenty-seven, and I had no idea when her (my?) birthday was.             "What's that face for?" Wyatt asked.             "Huh?"  Had I been pulling a face?             "You looked confused for a second."             "Just wondering which birthday is technically mine now.  When Evy Stone was born, or when Chalice Frost was born."             "What about May twentieth?  The day you came back to me?"             I gave him a smile.  "I can go with that."             His face went blank.  "Stop."             "Stop what?"             "Stop the car."             I was in the middle of traffic and not very good at parallel parking, so I went up to the next block and found a small lot.  He was already out the door before I shut off the engine, so I had to scramble to catch up.  Back down the block.  He was practically jogging.  The foot traffic was pretty thin for a Sunday afternoon, but I still had to dodge a few bodies and angry glares.             "What is it?" I asked when I finally caught up with him.             He'd stopped across the street from our old building.  His nostril twitched and his eyes were dilated.  "I smell them.  It's faint, but it's here."             "Right here?"             "Over there."  He pointed at my old building.             
I wasn't even going to ask if he was kidding, because I knew he wasn't.  

###
 Please do not reproduce text in any way.

Dreg City 5 News: I Can Haz Title

Okay, peeps, I know I've been talking about digitally self-publishing Dreg City 5 for a while now. The good news is, THIS IS STILL HAPPENING.  The bad news is...well, there really isn't bad news, since THIS IS STILL HAPPENING.



I am in the midst of edits. After that, I'll do that whole formatting thing. I am in the process of commissioning cover art. Steps are being taken in order to have this book for sale by....

The end of August/early September.

This year has totally been getting away from me, and I've been dealing with some personal stuff that's stolen a lot of my attention. I'd hoped to have this book ready for June, but that's obviously not happening. And even if I did get the book formatted and ready to go in three weeks, that's barely any time for reviewers to get their advanced copies and actually, you know, review the book close to release.

So I'm looking at late August.  Really, it's only two months. And it gives you plenty of time to reread the other books, because you may need the refresher.

Also? If you missed the short, Tybalt-centric story I posted on Suvudu.com way back when THREE DAYS TO DEAD first released, you should check it out.  The major story in Book 5 is tied to the events in this story.  Is it absolutely necessary that you read it first?  No. Will it give you extra insight into Tybalt, Marcus, Astrid, the Pride, and a bad guy named Prentiss?  Absolutely.

So check out PRIDE BEFORE FALL.

Marcus commands you!


Okay, last bit of news for you awesome folks who've read this far: Book Five has a title!

Dreg City 5 is now officially REQUIEM FOR THE DEAD.

I'll have a blurb soon!

Can I Keep Him? Can I?

Dear fellow "Rent" fans,

Ponying up the money for a day trip into New York City in order to see a Broadway performance of "Chicago," and then hanging around the stage door after the show led to the best (early) birthday present ever:






 And I even got a week-early "Happy Birthday!"

He was fantastic as Billy Flynn, by the way.

Love,

A Very Happy Rent-head (and general Adam Pascal fan)

Disney's Genetic Opera

Admit it. You've time randomly surfing the billions of insane things people upload to YouTube. It's okay. So do I.

Tonight I stumbled upon some videos that I have to share, because they amuse me beyond words. REPO: THE GENETIC OPERA is one of my favorite movies. It came out in 2008 to very little fanfare, but it's become a bit of a cult classic. I'd put that on the list of 10 Movies You'd Bring With You To a Desert Island.  It's awesome. It's basically a horror movie musical.  If you haven't seen it, I highly suggest it.

So you know those awesome fans who come up with ideas and make mashup videos?  Well, I found a slew of videos that reimagine the songs from REPO with scenes from Disney movies.

Yes, Disney movies.

And they are awesome.


ZYDRATE ANATOMY


CHASE THE MORNING


LET THE MONSTER RISE

Happy Mother's Day

What? You expected something traditional?

A Couple of Links

I said I'd be back with a few links to some of the guest posts floating around out there. Check them out and leave them a little love in the form of a comment.

A discussion of villain dynamics in the MetaWars world is up over at CMash Reads.

This possibility of change was one of the big building blocks of TEMPEST.  I used this book to really explore the hero/villain dynamic of the MetaWars world. 

"The Family You Make" is over at Tote Bags 'n' Blogs.

But families are more than simple biology.  They the people you choose to love and to allow into your life.  They laugh with you, cry with you, and they'll bury a body for you (metaphorically, in most cases, but you never know….).   I appreciate "made families" in real life, but I truly enjoy exploring those dynamics in fiction—movies, television, and books.

I'm participating in the Fantastic Fables event at Dark Faerie Tales. My story is a bit of a MetaWars take on Hansel and Gretel, starring Ethan and Marco, called "Cookie Monster."

We weren’t Hansel and Gretel traipsing through the woods, so I had no reason to fear whatever was behind the gingerbread door, but that didn’t mean I was going to walk up to it and invite myself into trouble.  I attracted injuries like a human lodestone.

An interview at Bibliophilic Book Blog.

Q. What is the hardest part of writing for you?

Telling myself that it's okay to stop and walk away for a while.

 

Tempest: Chapter One Teaser

With TEMPEST releasing in only two days, I was going to whet your appetite with all of Chapter One--until I realized that Chapter One is, like, twenty-five pages. That's a lot of text for a blog post, so instead I present the first scene in Chapter One.  And if you like what you see, don't forget to buy TEMPEST on Monday from Amazon, BN, Kobo, and other online retailers!

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OneWest Hollywood            "Greens are such a pain in the ass.”
 I hadn’t intended my comment to come out loud enough for anyone to overhear, especially my boss and partner for the night, Teresa West, but she heard it anyway and gave me a quelling glare from her side of the pile of rubble we were crouching behind. I didn’t take the words back, though. My personal ass was in quite a bit of its own pain after a telekinetic blast from the aforementioned Green knocked me onto it about two minutes ago. “Green” was our chosen word for young, untrained Metas who thought it was cool to use their newly discovered powers to break the law.
Such as the telekinetic Green attempting to rob West Hollywood’s only branch of the Second National Bank of California. Most average bank robbers go in during the day, when a teller can hand over the cash. Our bank robber thought she was clever by going in at three in the morning to tear out a few walls.
Fortunately for us, she wasn’t clever enough to test her newfound powers before the robbery, or she’d have known they didn’t actually work on steel. She’d spent so much time fighting to open the vault, LAPD had showed up—then they decided to call us in to deal with the mess. As the leader of our band of mismatched former Rangers, Teresa accepted the job and then promptly assigned herself.  Her Meta ability lets her shoot awesome purple balls of energy, capable of annihilating walls, out of her fingers, as well as create the occasional force field. She volunteered me because I can control the wind. Ethan “Tempest” Swift at your service. Among other handy things, I can stop the wind from moving, blast it out, spiral it like a drill, and use it to fly.
The bank robber—whom we hadn’t actually seen yet, but whose screams of frustration had a decidedly female pitch—was not happy when we appeared on the scene . My pained ass and the pile of rubble serving as our shield against her tantrum (rubble that used to be part of the building across the street from the bank) were proof.
“She’s terrified,” Teresa said.
“That tends to happen when you rob a bank and the cops show up,” I replied with a heaping dose of sarcasm.
Teresa has a thing about helping Metas. All Metas, but especially the Greens. I love her to pieces, but most days I just don’t get her ability to see the best in people—especially after all the shit we’ve been through at the hands of regular, non-Meta kinds of people.
I peeked over the top of our debrisMy back twinged and I shifted my weight onto my left knee. “Look, I have an idea to get her out and keep her from smashing anything else with her temper,” I said.
“Do tell.”
“Ever heard of the Tasmanian Devil?”
“The animal?”
“Old cartoon character.”
Her eyebrows furrowed and she opened her mouth to say something, then shut it. Understanding smoothed out the lines on her forehead. She held out her right hand, palm up. A hazy purple orb formed there, the kind of fuzzy powerball she used to knock people around without causing serious damage. “Just tell me when,” she said.
With the boss’s vote of confidence, I stood up. Yes, it made me a big freaking target, but oh well. I had a better view of the bank and the actual volume of air inside. I moved the air with ease, grabbing it hard and spinning it in a tight, formed cyclone that sent paper, glass, and other small debris inside the bank zinging away. The cyclone danced toward the back of the bank, and I closed my eyes, waiting for the change in pressure that signaled I’d caught something.
Adrenaline pulsed into my blood, as much from the thrill of using my powers as from being made a target, standing in the open like that. Any idiot with a gun and a strong belief in Governor Martin Winstead’s anti-Meta propaganda could get frisky and try to take us out. Hell, some of the cops had looked ready to take a pop at us the instant we showed up at the scene, like we were there to assist the bank robber instead of stop her.
A little extra wind fluttered around me, but the majority of it had created a person-sized tornado inside the bank—and a sharp snap against my control told me that the Green was fighting back. Awareness prickled the skin on the back of my neck. I zeroed in on the opposing force and shoved right back, tightening the cyclone, whipping the air around faster, harder.
Ever stuck your hand out the window of a speeding car just to feel the wind rushing around your fingers? Imagine that all over your body, slamming against your face, numbing your skin. The telekinetic pushback felt like that.
Easiest way to end this would be to send my cyclone into the nearest wall and use the shrapnel cloud to knock the bank robber silly. Two major problems with the easy way: one, I’d get my ass reamed (and not in the fun way) by Teresa if I intentionally injured the Green when avoiding it was still possible; and two, causing unnecessary property damage was near the top of our To Don’t list.
So no knocking out a wall to knock out the latest Meta-powered felon of America. Not tonight.
I pulled more air into the bank and into the volume of the cyclone. The buildings around the bank creaked under the pressure changes. If I didn’t end this soon, a wall somewhere was coming down in the next sixty seconds.
“Tempest?”
I ignored Teresa’s impatient use of my code name and shoved everything I had into getting that cyclone moving. The teller counter crumpled (not my fault) and pieces got sucked into the cyclone (by accident). Trying to expel them would take too much of my concentration, so I tempted Teresa’s wrath and broke through the telekinetic’s resistance with my cyclone—at the exact same moment, a piece of desk, aimed right at my head, zoomed out of the bank.
 The desk exploded in a shower of shrapnel and purple sparks.
Note to self: Thank Teresa.
The pressure inside my air cyclone had changed now that the Green was stuck inside it, probably getting the snot smacked out of her by all the crap she’d made me suck up like the world’s strongest vacuum cleaner. I drew the cyclone out of the bank, which ripped up the tiled floor and sent pieces sailing into the street. The thick swirl of gray and brown whippedthe air, and my intense hold on it sent a tremor down my spine.
“Anytime,” I said, nearly shouting to be heard over the roar of my own powers.
“Now!” Teresa said.
I dropped the wind completely and fell to my knees, my entire body shivering from the stress of holding the cyclone for so long. The debris collapsed to the ground just outside the bank, and the black-clad figure trapped inside teetered on her feet for a split second—then a purple orb knocked her backward, into the wall of the building next door, shattering it with amazing ease. The Green stayed down.
The rest of the Second National Bank of California collapsed with a long, thunderous groan.
As the dust settled, I looked up at Teresa and grimaced. “Oops?”
“Big fucking oops,” she replied. She shook her head, her expression as sad as it was frustrated. “The mayor’s going to have a field day with this.”
Of that I had no doubt. The mayor of Los Angeles, Christina Ainsworth, tolerated our presence in her city the way a homeowner tolerates a nearby hornet’s nest—by ignoring us until we made too much noise, and then attacking without mercy. And with her favorite presidential candidate, Governor Winstead, in town stumping for votes on his anti-Meta platform and due to give a public press conference tomorrow afternoon, we were screwed.
Sometimes trying to help people came back to bite you.
And not in the fun way.

Housekeeping and Other Sundries

Wow.  I can't believe it's been almost two months since my last blog post.  I suppose the main reason for that is I haven't had much to report on, or anything truly interesting to say.  So I do apologize to folks who've been checking in for something.

With TEMPEST's release only six days away, you'll probably see me popping up on various blogs, doing interviews and guest posts. I'll link back when things go live.  Right now I have a post up at My World....in Words and Pages as part of their Mythical Monday Meme.  I talk "Of Heroes and Titans" and how mythology helped create the MetaWars world.

CHIMERA (MetaWars #4, aka Renee's book) is up for pre-order!

I'm excited to announce that I'll be a Featured Author at Authors After Dark: Charlotte in 2014. I had so much fun at AAD last year, and I'm sad to miss it this year (but for a very good reason, as my BFF is getting married at the same time). Mistress of Ceremonies is Alexandra Ivy, who I had the pleasure of meeting in New Orleans. I can't wait!

Last, but certainly not least, is the ReDeus anthology. I've mentioned a few times that I'll have a story in this collection, put out by my friends at Crazy8Press.  The official title is ReDeus: Beyond Borders, and there's a nifty little post over at the Crazy8 Blog.  The cover is absolutely gorgeous, and the anthology will debut this year at Balticon.