Cate Masters's Blog, page 62

Native American blurb fest at TBR this weekend

Blogger wouldn't allow me to insert this news into today's other post, so it has to be separate. *sigh*

If your stories contain Native American characters, I hope you'll share your blurbs at TBR this weekend. I'll be out of town for my high school reunion and won't have access to a computer to remind anyone, so I hope you'll help me spread the word. It's a chance for authors to gain extra exposure for their work, and very easy to participate. 

Great new releases to check out!

Congrats to Barbara Elsborg on the release of A Girl Most Likely To! Available now from Ellora's Cave.


Here's the blurb:

Wren doesn’t feel like the girl most likely to end up living happily ever after. Especially when Adam, aka THE BIG MISTAKE, comes back into her life. He wants a second chance but Wren’s afraid to risk another dent in her battered heart.
When Adam reconnects with Wren, he’s torn between wooing her and pursuing Tomas, the sexy guy in the flat next door. They both make his heart sing—how can he possibly choose? Or maybe he’s finally found a man and woman toTomas knows better than to let his personal life interfere with his job as an undercover officer but he can’t get enough of Adam…or Wren. Or Adam and Wren, when they’re hot, naked and writhing together in his bed.
Suddenly Wren’s gone from the girl most likely to get ripped off to the girl most likely to get off. But it’s more than sex. She, Tomas and Adam have something special, something they’re determined to protect at all costs.
Congrats to Mariposa Cruz on the release of Roar! Available now from The Wild Rose Press.
Here's the blurb:Focused on the bottom line, corporate paralegal Linda Underwood answers to no one. Her world is torn apart when a bear shifter turns her romantic weekend rendezvous into a desperate struggle to stay alive. Now a recently-turned shifter herself, she is determined to beat the affliction by ignoring her newly awakened beastly impulses. After the accidental death of his wife, shifter Flynn Cromwell finds solace in a remote mountain cabin, immersed in his computer network security work. When he discovers Linda’s ravaged body near the brink of death, he’s compelled to protect her.
Can Flynn save Linda from her own stubborn nature and defend her from a vicious shifter with a taste for her blood? Can Linda soothe the beast within, even the score with her maker, and gain Flynn’s trust as well his heart?

These are both on my TBR list. :)

Sneak peek at another novella coming soon!

I love Grimm's fairy tales, don't you? I also love the T.V. show Grimm and can't wait for its new season to begin. I actually try not to watch too much television, but this show sucked me right in. I couldn't wait for Friday night and the next new episode.

One of my favorite Grimm's fairy tales is The Twelve Dancing Princesses, so I thought I'd write an updated version. Futuristic, in fact. With zombies. Instead of actual princesses, the girls are the adopted daughters of Mayor King, who refers to them as his princesses. Yes, they still like to dance, but the zombie colony outside City's borders have put a damper on fun. Geniuses that they are, these sisters combine fun with high-tech zombie annihilation. :)

It's been my summer project, and topped out at 24k, making The Twelve Dancing, Zombie-Killing Princesses a fast, fun read.

I'm shooting for Aug. 17 as the release date. August has become a busy month, with Death Is A Bitch releasing from Decadent Publishing on August 3, and now that the rights to Angels Sinners and Madmen have reverted to me, I'll re-release the revised historical novel on Aug. 31. Which means every other Friday is release day! Par-tay month!

Casting Call: Death Is A Bitch

Oo, I've been waiting a long time to share this cast!

This was such a fun story to write, and as usual, played like a movie in my head as I wrote.

And as usual, the characters came through very clearly.
Death. The word conjures quite a few negative images, doesn't it? Well, why? Why shouldn't Death be a gorgeous babe in gold stilettos? Intelligent and sensitive, she has a work ethic to match the relentless task of harvesting souls. Trouble is, it wreaks havoc on her personal existence.

Since I began writing this story, Claudia Black was always Death. She can portray a strong and strong-willed female, a warrior-goddess who, if crossed, will yes - become a bitch. One you don't want to cross.

Azrael, Patron Angel of the Dying and the Dead, oversees all those associated with the process of dying, from funeral home workers to grief counselors to pallbearers and yes, the grieving people left behind.

I imagined him as somewhat shy, adorable but awkward with females. Especially Death, on whom he's had an eternal crush. :)

Paul Walker makes a wonderful Azrael.

As you might imagine, Death has an interesting family. Not one you'd probably want to share a holiday dinner with, though.

Her twin sister, Hypnos, bestows sleep on humans. She's every bit as busy as Death, but instead of gold stilettos, she wears raggedy bunny slippers. Hypnos is much more laid back.

Cute, wide-eyed Zooey Deschanel was always Hypnos. I love that she might be about to yawn in this pic.

Death's parents are likewise, um, interesting. Her mother is Nyx, otherwise known as Night. As beautiful as her daughters, she's also intelligent and exciting.

Anjelica Houston is perfect as Nyx. She has the goddess thing down.

Her hubby, Death and Hypnos' father, is Erebos, otherwise known as Darkness. He's well acquainted with Earth, but also with the Underworld, and he often tries to get into the Prince of Darkness' good graces (someone should tell him, good luck with that). He also has a penchant for too much hair product.

Classically handsome, he can sometimes be shallow, but beneath it all, loves his family and would do anything for them.

George Clooney was Erebox from the start.

Aside from Death, Damien the demon might be my favorite character in this story. Too handsome for his own good, he's also witty and clever, and underhanded (as demons are). Not one to be trusted for an instant. Humans sometimes call him into service unwittingly at the moment of their passing, a last desperate attempt to cling to life. This brings Damien into frequent contact with Death. Not that he minds. He loves it, in fact, and wants a lot more contact than Death is willing to give. Her reluctance pisses him off. And a pissed-off demon is a vengeful demon.

Bad boy Collin Farrell made writing Damien's character so much fun.

As myth has it, King Sisyphus is the only human who ever escaped Death's clutches. Twice, in fact. Zeus sentenced him to forever push a boulder up a hill in Tartarus, and he's damn tired of it. So tired, he'll listen to any scheming demon.

Harvey Keitel would make a wonderful Sisyphus.

I took some liberty with Acragas. Son of Zeus and the Oceanid Asterope, Acragas was a silver smith. My research revealed that items made from silver often possess some sort of magical power. What fun! Of course, I had to give Death a charm bracelet of magical silver, and each charm has a specific function.

I imagined Acragas, the master silversmith, as lanky and tall, with wiry red hair, and prone to wearing funky clothes. Maybe I had T.C. Boyle in my head all along, but he was Acragas while I wrote. No, he's not an actor, but a writer I idolize. And the movie's in my head, but he'd be very cool as Acragas on the big screen too.


Another master at his craft, Malean is the tattoo artist who inked Death's butterfly tattoo. Yep, the one that shows each human's face as they're dying.

A small but important part, Jack Black's great as Malean.


You can find out more about Death Is A Bitch here.

Or buy a copy here. Hurry - it's only 99 cents for a limited time!

Death is here!

Hooray, it's release day! Death Is A Bitch is a dark, but fun, paranormal novella with humorous and romantic elements.

The wonderful folks at Decadent Publishing not only are releasing it today, but as a special treat, it's only 99 cents for the next five days! Not only that, but you can pick up my other Decadent dark paranormal, Dead to Rights, for only 99 cents too!

Pretty cool, huh? I hope it will tempt you enough to try them both. :)

And now, let the happy dance commence! 

Insecure Writers: Discouragement

Wow, it's so easy to get discouraged in this writing biz. And let it throw us off track. It presents itself as an almost palpable obstacle now and then, so I overcome it by reminding myself why I write - because I love it. It's my joy and my escape, my nurturing and sometimes tearing-down. But always, it's part of who I am. All the other nits about this business won't stop me from doing what I love.

I came across this graphic online, and it seemed perfect for today. For anyone finding themselves in a slump, know that it's perfectly natural. Just keep your eyes on the prize, and remember what's important. Never never never give up.

Thanks to Alex J. Cavanaugh, the Ninja organizer of Insecure Writers. Go visit some other writers and spread some good will!

A local Olympic hero

I love watching the Olympics, don't you? The feats of these athletes amaze me.

I wish they had some video clips of older games. I'd especially love to see Jim Thorpe in action. One sportswriter said, "He moved like a breeze." As one of the Native Americans who attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, you'd think our local newspapers would have mentioned his incredible accomplishments in their recent highlight of past Olympics, but Thorpe is often overlooked.

An article in the July-August issue of Smithsonian Magazine called "The All American" reflects on his unparalleled achievements.

His athletic prowess was discovered accidentally when he broke the school record for the high jump on a whim, while wearing overalls and a work shirt.

He played football, baseball, track and lacrosse, and also competed in hockey, handball, tennis, boxing and ballroom dancing. His coach signed him up for multiple events at competitions, and he once won a dual meet against Lafayette, taking first in the high hurdles, low hurdles, high jump, long jump, shot put and discus throw.

Before the Eastern Olympic trials in 1912, he'd never thrown a javelin and didn't know he could take a running start, throwing from a standstill. He still took second place.

At the Stockholm games in 1912, his 11.2-second record in the 100 meter dash remained unbroken until 1948.

In the now-defunct pentathlon, Thorpe placed first in four of the five events, which took place in a single day.

After two days of competing in nine other events, Thorpe blew away his competition in the last event, the 1500 meter run - wearing mismatched shoes. His 4 minute, 40.1 second record remained broken until 1972.

His overall Olympic score remained unbroken for four more Olympic games. Yet in 1912 the IOC stripped him of his medals "for violating the elitist Victorian codes of amateurism." The IOC sent two replica medals in 1982 to his family but failed to reinstate his incredible record at the 1912 games.

Following the Olympics, Thorpe returned to Carlisle to lead the school football team to Ivy League-level victories. The Smithsonian article explains it all, and asks why it took a letter-writing campaign for Thorpe's image to finally appear on the Wheaties box in 2001. He went on to play football professionally, and is recognized by the Football Hall of Fame.  Though not a native of Pennsylvania, Jim Thorpe was buried in the town named after him.
Thorpe is one of the most famous Native Americans who attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. I hadn't researched him while writing Follow the Stars Home because I focused on the school's opening decades earlier. While my characters are fictional, the events were all too real. Thorpe's story is just one of many dealing with triumph over brutal conditions.
I only hope the IOC will recognize their error in not giving this amazing athlete his Olympic due.

Living in a digital world

Much as I love writing ebooks, I have to admit – the digital world’s hard to navigate through at times. I get overwhelmed by the deluge of email, the dizzying number of sites to visit, and yes, even the avalanche of ebooks. My kindle now holds more than 320 ebooks, and the simple act of scrolling through the pages of titles takes more time than I care to spend.
Illegal downloads depress me, especially now that a company has decided to sell “used” digital products,including ebooks sometime in the future.  Really? Seriously? These people have no clue what it means to labor over something for months, sometimes years. Their brazenness astounds me.
The vehemence of Kindle boards against hard-working authors keeps me away entirely. It’s entirely too easy for anyone these days to spew hurtful words, and Facebook is becoming a real turn-off for not only this reason, but now that it’s limiting other people’s views of your posts and offering to sell you a deal for all the people who used to be able to see your posts to be able to see one – once only, unless you’re willing to shell out the $5.00 fee on an unlimited basis.
The tools that sites put up for readers to use have been made meaningless, sometimes by other authors attempting to demean works I suppose in order to make theirs more attractive (kind of a crazy notion, don’t you think? but it happens) and recently, an author said pirates have been leaving one-star, terrible reviews for her work. Why? If they want unscrupulous people to download from their sites, why make that book less than desirable? I can’t fathom much of the thinking behind these practices.
I suppose I’m old-fashioned sometimes. I don’t like being digitally connected 24/7, and I have a hard enough time without the Internet rewiring my brain, as this article claims. And this Newsweek article is even scarier, with evidence some people are actually suffering new forms of mental illness as a result.
If I ever leaned toward obsessive compulsiveness, it’s with checking email. And Facebook. And blogs. And about a dozen other sites. I get caught in a loop of circling from one to the other. It’s a frustrating cycle.

Not to mention that I could probably construct a web page faster than my computer can load them these days. Blogger has updated again, but this version doesn't "like" Firefox (the browser I use, of course) so error messages abound. Gotta love technology.
Don’t get me wrong, I love convenience of the Internet. Doing research is so easy using Google, but it’s not the same as, say, visiting a foreign place to absorb all its newness through your senses. But I honestly believe my brain’s already deficient, because I can’t use Twitter. Yes, I know how it works in theory, but when I try to actually use it, it’s instant overload and my brain shuts down.
It makes me sad to think, too, that future readers won’t know the joy of buying old books. I don’t mean used books, I mean old as in 50 or 100 years old. I suppose I’m a dweeb, but when I found a copy of Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad from 1906, I had to have it, and still get excited when I open it and think he might have actually touched it, too (it’s from a Connecticut library).
Several other antique books sit on my top shelf, out of reach of little hands. In large boxes I’ve never unpacked since we moved six years ago, all the LPs of my youth are crammed together, probably too warped to ever play again, but I can’t get rid of them. I love them. Some are rare, including The Beatles Rarities, and a white vinyl White Album. I have yet to switch to digital music, though I suppose it’s inevitable at some point.
Maybe I’m just upset I couldn’t write this weekend. As many times as I sat down at the laptop, I got up again. I had “monkey mind,” as Natalie Goldberg (and Buddhists) call it, and my thoughts were swinging from neuron to neuron, screeching with laughter at my attempts to lure them down.
Maybe it was just one of those weekends. Sometimes, I can tear up the keyboard from Friday night through Sunday night and rack up a word count of 12k or so. This wasn’t one of those weekends. But there will be others. That monkey's going down.

Halloween in July!

Hey, why not? Others have Christmas in July. So I'm making the next three days Halloween in July. And I'm giving out a treat! You can download my dark paranormal ghost story, In the Midnight Hour, today through July 29. Go grab a copy!

And after you read it, I'd really love a review!

You can find out more about In the Midnight Hour here.

Or just watch the book video below. :)

Happy reading!

Good news!

I knew if I took a break, it would set things in motion. :)
Death Is A Bitch has a release date! Get ready for her, because Death is coming on Aug. 3 - with gold stilettos on. Woot! I can't wait.
Here's the updated blurb: Eternity can suck when it’s all work, work, work. Death harvests souls even when they stack up faster than pancakes in an all-you-can-eat-buffet. No wonder she can’t shed the Grim Reaper rep. As the patron angel of death and dying, Azrael works closely with Death but is dying for true intimacy. She’s the only immortal who’s ever aroused such powerful emotions in him. One taste of her leaves him needing her like humans need air and food, but will a demon’s lies leave a bad taste? No one escapes Death – except King Sisyphus. Twice. With the help of Damien the demon, Sisyphus tries again, and she’s determined to have justice. Some say Death’s a bitch, but only when she has to be. But will the price of justice be a broken heart? And an excerpt: Death stepped from the shadowy curtain of night along a deserted stretch of road toward the mangled hunk of cherry-red metal that used to be a sweet Z240 sports car. Stardust glinted in the black hair that dipped to her waist.She kept a safe distance from the wreck. Inside, a thirtyish man slumped behind the wheel, the air bag deflating away from his near-lifeless body. Blood oozed from a nasty gash to his head. Should have worn his seat belt. Too late for life lessons, though. Those weren’t her expertise anyway. Just the opposite.Leaves crackled in the underbrush beyond the nearby trees. Death gripped the silver charm bracelet on her wrist, her senses on high alert. Her finger poised near the hidden latch, ready to release a stream of lightning.A deer. It stilled, its wide eyes fixed on her.Seeing nothing else, she continued with a modicum of caution. Taking souls didn’t exactly make her popular, and after so many millennia, she should’ve been used to it. The bad jokes. The Halloween parodies. A scythe? Please. She’d never used cheap props. Only the finest weaponry. No mortal ever suspected the intricately designed baubles adorning her bracelet were anything more than ornamental.Moonlight gleamed off the curves of the sports car, and she ran a gilded nail along its hood. She wouldn’t mind taking one of these babies for a spin. In its former condition, of course, before this guy took the curve too fast and wrapped it around a tree. Humans always rushed everywhere, sometimes straight into her arms.The man’s moan signaled she had no need for weapons. This one would give her no trouble. She fingered his blond hair, matted with blood. What a shame. So young, and so handsome. He’d leave at least one lover grieving, no doubt.His eyes fluttered open. When he looked up, recognition intensified the flicker of life in his eyes.She needed no introduction. They always knew her, unmistakable in the glimmering black filament gown, its folds revealing a glimpse into infinity.The stilettos usually earned a second glance, the four-inch heels glistening like fool’s gold. The butterfly tattoo spanning her upper arm likewise drew curious looks, which inevitably changed to horror when the souls recognized the face imprinted within that colorful ink: their own.
But wait, there's more news :)

I'm also featured at The Romance Studio, sharing some goodies about Dancing With the Devil. TRS posted the interview awhile ago but a storm took out their servers, but it's here if you care to pop over.

Hope to see you back here next Friday for the kickoff of Halloween in July!