Shirin Dubbin's Blog, page 4

New Keeper, New Price!

On Monday, in celebration of the release of Chaos Tryst the new Aftermath Cleaner version of Keeper of the Way will be on sale for 40% off  at a variety of retailers. Keeper is a favorite of mine and a lot of my readers. This is a great chance to check out the new storyline and Aftermath Cleaner characters. Wait until you meet Kunai–you'll adore him.

On Sale Now @ |  Amazon |  Barnes and Noble |  All Romance |

Reader to Writer Exchange!

I'm in the middle of a second great chat with reader and reviewer Kelsey Opsahl (@kopsahl). This time the topic is Chaos Tryst, my upcoming release. Each time Kelsey reads one of my books she offers alternate viewpoints and understandings that help me see the story through a different lens. Our talks are a great example of how readers make authors better—if we're listening.

Kelsey and I will have a new interview and giveaway up at the end of next month. In the between time, check out our talk on Dreams' Dark Kiss and the infamous DNF. Oh my…

Chaos Tryst

THE OFFICIAL BLURB

Ariana Golde may be known for breaking and entering but she's no thief, she's a returner. She retrieves stolen objects and gives them back to their rightful owners. Her latest job: retrieving a statue from the Medveds. But Ari is having an off night, and she's caught red-handed by the three brothers, who don't just get mad—they turn into bears.

Maksim Medved is outraged—the statue belongs to his parents. But Ari's returner magick doesn't lie: the heirloom has a new rightful owner. Ari is drawn to the surly, handsome Maks—maybe because he possesses the same chaos magick she does. But while Ariana enjoys a touch of chaos, Maks hates its destructive power.

When Ari and Maks team up to find her mystery client, their chaos magicks ignite even faster than their attraction. Can Maks learn to love a little chaos, or will the havoc they cause among the faebled creatures drive him away for good?

33,000 words – releasing Oct 3, 2011 from Carina Press

MY TAKE ON IT

=grin=

Ariana Golde may be known for breaking and entering but she's no thief. Ari is a returner. She retrieves stolen objects and gives them back to their rightful owners. Her latest job: retrieving a statue from the Medved brothers. But Ari must be having an off night, because she's caught red-handed by the three shifters, who don't just get mad—they go bear-llistic.

Maksim Medved is outraged. The statue belongs to his parents. But Ari's returner magick doesn't lie; the heirloom has a new rightful owner. Ari agrees to take Maks to the client who hired her—because she's crushing on him hard—but when Ari and Maks team up to find her mystery client, their dual chaos magicks ignite even faster than their attraction.

Ari will have to think fast and talk faster to out-maneuver goblins, ogres and the occasional explosion, or the havoc she and Maks cause among the Faebles may drive him away for good. Let the games begin.

On Sale Now @ |  Amazon | Barnes and Noble |

Keeper of the Way (Aftermath Cleaners 1)

One man is a harbinger. The other a bad boy. She's set to save their race. Too bad she has to die.

NiaMora, a magical crime scene cleaner, is destined to die tonight. Severin, a harbinger of death, has already arrived to bear witness. But he'll defy his duty. He won't stand by and watch, not when NiaMora may be the Fae's last hope of survival.

Zan Wynn cares nothing for Severin's heroic delusions. The Fae-tech mogul has "spies" on NiaMora and her aftermath cleaner team. He wants her for reasons of his own and as the quintessential bad boy—some might say bad guy—he can't be bothered to play fair.

Oblivious to her doom, NiaMora focuses on the missing Way, the very essence of the Fae and the reason they are trapped in the mortal world. There's also the small matter of remaining single when she can't deny Severin's power over her or Zan Wynn's hypnotic pull. One man is her fate, the other the prelude to her destruction.

Shawn Kufper Is Made of Awesome

Fellow Carina Press author and friend Shawn Kupfer just announced a surprise giveaway featuring Chaos Tryst with a special collection of short stories from his 47 Echo universe as the swag. Everyone who enters wins!!

There's a rumor going around that Shawn is AWESOME! Well…YEAH! Thank you, Shawn!

History Repeating.../Art and Art Forms

SOUNDTRACK: History Repeating - The Propellerheads and Shirley Bassey

I recently read a comment from someone who felt one needn't know the history of an art form to enjoy it. This thought bothered me a great deal. Certainly I don't need to know the exact history of the flour, eggs, and vanilla that go into my cupcakes. But that's cake. We enjoy it in the moment then it's gone. Art is different, it should and must accrete with each cycle around the sun.

Art, in any form, only reaches new highs when the artists stand on the shoulders of those who came before. Otherwise every body is standing side by side and nobody reaches that next level.

Take literature. Who would J.K. Rowling's Harry be without Tolkien, Dahl, and Gaiman? She is a singular author and yet her knowledge of what came before surely played a huge part in her expansion and re-envisioning of magician fantasy. Would we have Cyberpunk without Gibson? Urban Fantasy without Windling? Romance without the romanticism of Austen? No, we wouldn't. And we certainly couldn't take our chances to improve on them—as insurmountable as those dreams may seem.

Ask Jay-Z, Mos Def, Kayne West and Talib Kweli about the history of Hip Hop and see if they won't take you all the way back. The greats before them were able to do the same. Big Daddy Kane and Rakim are some of the dopest lyricists ever—timeless. Maybe the reason mainstream Hip Hop hasn't progressed in so long is because young cats [read: folks] don't know where it comes from so they can't see where to take it.

In visual art the examples go on and on. James Jean wouldn't be so awesome without the genius of Arthur Rackham and classical painters. In film, futurist production design couldn't have developed as it has without Syd Mead. The book cover designers coming up today have far greater freedom to create because of Chip Kidd. Picture animation without Disney, Avery and Miyazaki. As I've said art must be built upon the foundation of what came before or else it stagnates.

One cannot begin to create a new style or singular voice without studying the history of one's art form—the pivotal words being new and singular. It can't happen. And if you still don't think we need our history to inform our present. Imagine going through total amnesia every ten years. Much of life would be spent rediscovering what you already learned last decade or the decade before. You'd repeat the same mistakes. In imagining this, ask yourself how much progress you would make. I say you'd be spinning your wheels, going nowhere.

~S!

A shout-out to Julian Lytle for inspiring this post.

History Repeating…

I recently read a comment from someone who felt one needn't know the history of an art form to enjoy it. This thought bothered me a great deal. Certainly I don't need to know the exact history of the flour, eggs, and vanilla that go into my cupcakes. But that's cake. We enjoy it in the moment then it's gone. Art is different, it should and must accrete with each cycle around the sun.

Art, in any form, only reaches new highs when the artists stand on the shoulders of those who came before. Otherwise every body is standing side by side and nobody reaches that next level.

Take literature. Who would J.K. Rowling's Harry be without Tolkien, Dahl, and Gaiman? She is a singular author and yet her knowledge of what came before surely played a huge part in her expansion and re-envisioning of magician fantasy. Would we have Cyberpunk without Gibson? Urban Fantasy without Windling? Romance without the romanticism of Austen? No, we wouldn't. And we certainly couldn't take our chances to improve on them—as insurmountable as those dreams may seem.

Ask Jay-Z, Mos Def, Kayne West and Talib Kweli about the history of Hip Hop and see if they won't take you all the way back. The greats before them were able to do the same. Big Daddy Kane and Rakim are some of the dopest lyricists ever—timeless. Maybe the reason mainstream Hip Hop hasn't progressed in so long is because young cats [read: folks] don't know where it comes from so they can't see where to take it.

In visual art the examples go on and on. James Jean wouldn't be so awesome without the genius of Arthur Rackham and classical painters. In film, futurist production design couldn't have developed as it has without Syd Mead. The book cover designers coming up today have far greater freedom to create because of Chip Kidd. Picture animation without Disney, Avery and Miyazaki. As I've said art must be built upon the foundation of what came before or else it stagnates.

One cannot begin to create a new style or singular voice without studying the history of one's art form—the pivotal words being new and singular. It can't happen. And if you still don't think we need our history to inform our present. Imagine going through total amnesia every ten years. Much of life would be spent rediscovering what you already learned last decade or the decade before. You'd repeat the same mistakes. In imagining this, ask yourself how much progress you would make. I say you'd be spinning your wheels, going nowhere.

~S!

A shout-out to Julian Lytle for inspiring this post.

Musings… Space Vikings!

Forget space pirates, I want Space Vikings!

"Prepare your planet for pillage and plunder (in the form of Alexander Skarsgård)"

Chaos Tryst

THE OFFICIAL BLURB

Ariana Golde may be known for breaking and entering but she's no thief, she's a returner. She retrieves stolen objects and gives them back to their rightful owners. Her latest job: retrieving a statue from the Medveds. But Ari is having an off night, and she's caught red-handed by the three brothers, who don't just get mad—they turn into bears.

Maksim Medved is outraged—the statue belongs to his parents. But Ari's returner magick doesn't lie: the heirloom has a new rightful owner. Ari is drawn to the surly, handsome Maks—maybe because he possesses the same chaos magick she does. But while Ariana enjoys a touch of chaos, Maks hates its destructive power.

When Ari and Maks team up to find her mystery client, their chaos magicks ignite even faster than their attraction. Can Maks learn to love a little chaos, or will the havoc they cause among the faebled creatures drive him away for good?

33,000 words – releasing Oct 3, 2011 from Carina Press

MY TAKE ON IT

=grin=

Ariana Golde may be known for breaking and entering but she's no thief. Ari is a returner. She retrieves stolen objects and gives them back to their rightful owners. Her latest job: retrieving a statue from the Medved brothers. But Ari must be having an off night, because she's caught red-handed by the three shifters, who don't just get mad—they go bear-llistic.

Maksim Medved is outraged. The statue belongs to his parents. But Ari's returner magick doesn't lie; the heirloom has a new rightful owner. Ari agrees to take Maks to the client who hired her—because she's crushing on him hard—but when Ari and Maks team up to find her mystery client, their dual chaos magicks ignite even faster than their attraction.

Ari will have to think fast and talk faster to out-maneuver goblins, ogres and the occasional explosion, or the havoc she and Maks cause among the Faebles may drive him away for good. Let the games begin.

Artesian vs. Tap with The Rejectionist

Artesian vs. Tap: In which my alter ego ponders the relay we writer's run and it's base elements…