Kat Parrish's Blog, page 22

Revenge is a dish best served cold...Sunday fiction flashback

Over at Death's Head Press, they've got a call for submissions for a new anthology with the theme of "Revenge.  They're not accepting reprints, but this is a story I would have written for them:
AULD LANG SYNE
I got a few quizzical looks when I signed in.  It’s possible some of the women working at the registration desk remembered me but I doubted it.  Back in high school I’d had lank brown hair, bad skin and had carried an extra 30 pounds.  I’d spent my four miserable years at Woodrow Wilson High School being invisible and dreaming of better times to come.  Better times had come.  I looked good for my age.
I spotted Alicia Cooper almost at once.  Alicia Womack, now.  Everyone had expected her to marry Tommy Womack ever since they’d been crowned king and queen at our senior prom.  I hadn’t gone to the prom.  I wasn’t asked.  I’d spent that night sobbing in my bedroom while my poor mother tried desperately to distract me with vanilla milkshakes.  I was inconsolable but I drank two of the milkshakes anyway.  I did things like that in those days. 
I never really thought I’d come to a reunion but as the years slipped by, the notion of making an appearance at my 50thbegan to seem attractive.  I’d long ago lost touch with everybody, but the reunion committee had set up a group on Facebook, so I was able to get all the information I needed.  I sent in my reservation, made my travel plans, and bought a new dress. 
The banquet room at the Sheraton was decorated with huge black and white photographs blown up from our senior yearbook.  There wasn’t a picture of me.  I’d skipped school the day pictures were taken. 
I drifted around the ballroom to get my bearings.  A few people glanced my way and smiled, inviting me to join their conversations but I kept moving.    
I saw Diane Todd and her husband talking to Harvey and Henrietta Martorelli.  I’d liked Diane.  She’d been nice to me in a way that hadn’t felt like charity.  She’d aged gracefully and the way she and her husband stood shoulder to shoulder told me that she was loved.  I was glad. 
Harvey and Henrietta looked more like siblings now than spouses.  Both had evolved into sexless, blocky creatures with the same graying skin and thinning hair.  Henrietta had been in my honors history and English classes.  She’d been an earnest grade-grubber with a GPA and SAT scores that should have earned her admission to Yale like her brothers, but back then, Yale didn’t accept women, so she’d settled for Bryn Mawr instead. 
Finn Johnson had come with a woman half his age.  His hair had turned white but it was still full and he wore it longish, much as he had back in high school when he was our resident bad-ass.  Nobody thought he’d amount to much, not even me.  He had joined the Marines a week after graduation and five years later was part of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, the first American combat soldiers sent to Vietnam.
Finn came home with a case of PTSD, an addiction to heroin and a 600-page manuscript in his duffel.  That book, Chrome-Plated Dream,was the best-selling book of 1970, beating Jonathan Livingston Seagull by approximately 10 million copies.
Finn knew how to make an entrance and by the time he reached the bar, a little buzz had gone around the room.  Tommy Womack was looking at him with the feral gaze of an alpha male who’s just sensed a challenge.  Alicia was looking at him too, perhaps thinking about lost opportunities, perhaps wondering if Finn needed the little blue pills the way Tommy did.  Not that she and Tommy still had sex.
Alicia had been voted “most beautiful” in the class of 1960.  She’d had the figure of a beauty queen when the rest of us were still stuffing our bras with Kleenex.  Her life was a teenage girl’s dream and she had made mine a nightmare.
Alicia had not aged well.  Her hair was now the color of white zinfandel, a candy pink floss that had only ever really looked good on Lucille Ball.  Her porcelain skin was ravaged with deep ruts like a dirt road after a hard rain.  Her boobs had sagged and her decision to wear something low cut had been a mistake. 
Despite the deep décolletage, the dress was matronly and designed to hide her thick waist and heavy bottom.  She wasn’t truly fat but it wasn’t going to be long before she would need more than Spanx to fit into a size 16.  Keeping the weight down after menopause is a bitch.  But then, so was Alicia.
I saw her eyeing the platters of hors d’oeuvres being circulated, saw her decide against tasting even one as she looked over at Tommy holding court with Rob Dennehy and Nelson Brandt and Tad Grainger, his former teammates on the Woodrow Wilson Bulldogs.  They were all glancing at Finn’s arm candy and trying not to drool. 
Tommy looked good.  He’d gone bald, but with style, shaving his head and embracing the inevitable.  His suit was tailored, not off the rack, his tie was designer silk.  Tommy Womack had done well for himself.  That he was still married to Alicia told me he was either very discreet about his affairs or Alicia had an iron-clad pre-nup.  He wasn’t even glancing in her direction as she stood next to him, smiling stiffly, looking around vaguely for someone to come up and talk to her. 
Bird-like Cindy Renfrew-Cheung patted her arm fondly as she passed by on her way to freshen her drink and Alicia recoiled slightly.  Cindy had been a free spirit, a good-time girl who’d had to drop out for a year when she got pregnant. During that year, she taught herself Fortran and COBOL.  By the time Fortran 66 was released, she’d created ALLI; a programming language meant for kids that she’d named after her daughter, Allison.  Microsoft bought it and made Cindy a millionaire.
Cindy was now on her third husband, a Hong Kong businessman 23 years her junior.  I’d overheard her telling someone that Gordon Cheung was in Singaporeon business and that she’d brought her daughter along as her “date.”  It wasn’t hard to spot Alli Renfrew; she was a 40-ish version of her mother and just as lively.  All the waiters were flirting with her, even the gay ones. They were flirting with Cindy too.  Wrapped in a vivid blue Vera Wang dress, she was a butterfly among black-clad moths.
I saw Alicia head for the bathroom and followed, pushing open the door soundlessly.  The overhead lighting was harsh, falling on Alicia’s dyed hair like a spotlight; revealing a patch of naked pink skin on the top of her head.
“Hello Alicia,” I said as I came up behind her.  She spun around, startled.  She hadn’t heard me come in as she rummaged in her bag for her lipstick.  It was a deep burgundy shade that was all wrong with her hair.           
“Hello,” she answered automatically before turning back to the mirror to fix her lipstick.  And then she gasped.
Because of course, I no longer cast a reflection; hadn’t since I was 23 years old and turned into a vampire. 
 “Who are you?” she managed to stammer and I gave her points for that.  Most people usually say “What are you?”
I smiled, showing my fangs, which terrified her.  “Suzy Wisnicki,” I said.  “Remember me?”
She looked at me, at my glossy auburn hair and my clear skin and my slender body and saw no trace of the mousy fat girl she’d tormented so long ago.  She didn’t recognize me but I could tell she recognized my name. Alicia had been a mean girl before the term was ever coined.  She’d reveled in her beauty and the power of her popularity.  She had hurt people just for fun.  The memory of how she’d treated me made her go pale.
I could see all her emotions flickering across her face and not one of them was shame.
“But you’re young,” she finally managed to say and that made me smile wider.
“Yes,” I said.  And then I bit her.  Her blood tasted of nicotine and diet pills and diabetes.  It tasted nasty, so I rinsed my mouth out at the sink before leaving her on the floor. 
I had paid a maid to post an “Out of Order” sign at the door.  She’d been only too happy to oblige me after I looked deeply into her eyes and tucked a hundy into her apron pocket.
Alicia would rise in a couple of hours.  Immortal like me.
But unlike me, she would live the rest of her very long life in the shell of a wrinkled old woman.  Vampirism is a youth culture.  I gave her six months before she walked into the light.

Twenty-nine authors in search of readers

Writer and friend to writers Damien Seaman has chronicled the adventures of the Rite to Reign boxed set authors as we negotiate the journey to publication and possible list-making glory!!  It's an interesting read, and you'll get to know some of my fellow writers, including E.B. Black, Candace Osmond, Alex Singh, Mirren Hogan, Stephanie Barr, and Scott Hungerford. You'll find the article
here.

Friday Freebie

I tend to be Amazon-centric in my posts because I own a Kindle and not an iDevice or Kobo. But I'm in this very cool FREEBIE collection of stories and you can pick it up on Apple Books, Kobo, or Google Books right now. (Amazon has been slow to price match.)

Think of this as an appetizer for the feast that is to come when #RitetoReign publishes later this year. Eleven authors who have stories in Rite to Reign have donated stories for First to Reign. My story, Vaikus, is the prequel to my Brotherhood of Stone series coming out next year.

I like the cover a lot. It was designed by Cyberwitch Press' Heather Marie Adkins (USA Today bestselling novelist), who also happens to be one of the authors in the collection and also in #RitetoReign.

Preorder Rite to Reign here to get all sorts of pre-order bonuses and freebies.

Cover stories...

It's no secret that I love book covers, or that I currently have more covers in stock than I have books. (I use them for writing prompts and for inspiration. Yes, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.) I buy a lot of premades, but even my go-to sites for premades are getting kind of pricey. I don't begrudge the designers their money--they have skills that are worth money and they have to eat--but sometimes covers I covet are just plain out of my reach.

And then there's Glass Crocodile Covers' A.S. Oren, who runs INSANELY affordable sales for CUSTOM covers. I bought a Glass Crocodile premade for a novelette I have in mind but when the offer of a custom cover for $35 came up, I jumped on it like a duck on a Junebug. A hundred and five dollars and less than a week later, I had a new set of covers for an upcoming trilogy.

The books are going to be urban fantasy and I'm going with something different--a "mature" leading lady. My heroine is pushing fifty and rocking it, and I am hoping readers will embrace the idea of a heroine who is no longer 18.  We'll see. But in the meantime, look at this gorgeous cover for the first book!!

Everyone needs a crown--#ritetoreign

I'm not really much of a royal watcher but even I couldn't escape the pictures of yesterday's nuptials. And I zeroed in on that emerald and diamond tiara, which I thought was stunning. And very Russian-looking, I thought. (I've been thinking about Russian jewelry because Catherine the Great--my heroine in Secret Hexe--loved jewelry and a lot of her baubles ended up in the vaults of other European royals. If you didn't see it, here's a link to a story about the tiara and a great picture of it. (Getty images snapped up most of the pictures.)  I have no doubt that in short order you'll be able to buy a copy on Etsy, which already has numerous replicas of her distinctive engagement ring.

But I thought--who wouldn't like a tiara/crown of her/his own? And because great minds think alike, Anna Santos (another author in the Rite to Reign boxed set) has set up a giveaway in the Rite to Reign party room.  Drop by the party to comment on the crowns (number one and number five are my favorites) for a chance to win one of them. The party's going on all the way to our release date in December, so PARTY WITH US and win cool stuff and meet great people.

Who wants Freebies? #ritetoreign

Obviously, that was a trick question.
The answer is EVERYBODY wants freebies.
Well, you're in luck!!  If you pre-order our amazing boxed set here, you will get all kinds of goodness--exclusive content and more.  Follow the other writers for even more chances to win prizes and get advanced notice of good things to come. The party is in progress all weekend.

Interview with writer Alex H. Singh

In your bio you say you’ve been writing since you were 18. Were you encouraged to write as a kid? Did either of your parents write?
Encouragement would have been wonderful as a pre-teen sadly that did not occur. Neither of my parents wrote. In fact I was discouraged by the both of them stating writing can be done by anyone with a paper and a pen. What made me so special? Those words alone were wood added to the fire within.  I made sure to focus and encourage myself until I managed to finish my FIRST official novel myself. 
Did you start with short fiction or did you dive right into novels?
My first book which I hand wrote with a paper and pen was 6 pages and 17 Chapters long.  Obviously, once I got a computer I re wrote that story which then become over 200 pages with 19 Chapters. I went big or what was the point of being an Author. 
Do you remember the first time you were paid for a piece of writing? What was it?
My first novel was picked up by a publisher which I was surprised and excited at that time.  They helped me self publish my novel and 3 months after I was given a cheque for $300.00.  It was for a novel which is now discontinued but it was called “Secrets of My Past”. 
Do you follow a set schedule for writing, have a process, and have a certain word count you want to hit each day?
Every day, no matter what I come home, in order to de-istress from the day, I sit down and depending on my mood I will work on Character or Chapter Outlines for books pending or work on an existing novel which means I would write about 3-7K words.
Do you outline?                                                                                

Yes, of course without that I would be lost.
What part of writing do you enjoy the most? The least?
-Dreaming of my Characters, what chaos I can ensue upon them and how they will get out of it…alive.   I guess it’s the aspect of creating this new world in my mind then transcribing it on paper.
My least favorite thing is when I find it hard to shut my thoughts off and I have more than 1,2,3,4…and growing ideas for different stories or sequels. I find it hard to focus on the ones I have outstanding with new ideas popping up inside my thoughts. 
Do you reward yourself/celebrate when you finish a book? If so, how?
Ioriginally gave myself a goal that if I finished 10 novels I would buy myself a new laptop which I did. My new goal was if I did more than the last time I would buy myself an IPAD PRO which I am getting this holiday season as I did manage to surpass my goal. 
To me having my book in my hand is exciting enough. No need to celebrate every novel, at least for myself. 
If you won a two-week vacation anywhere in the world, where would you go?
This world is so beautiful it is hard to even imagine where I would like to go. I am not a traveler at all. However, I think I would visit Kona in Hawaii. It just looks to beautiful and relaxing.
What dead writer would you have most liked to meet?
I would love to meet VC Andrews.  I read all her novels growing up as a child and was mesmerized by the twisted storylines and characters entranced me.  To have such an imagination was beyond words.
How’s your work/life balance? Do your friends/family understand about deadlines or do they sometimes “guilt trip” you into coming to parties/events?
Work/Life balance is pretty good. I manage to get everything done and on time.  My friends understand fully when I am a “Do not disturb mode”, as for my family I do not see them that often enough for them to disturb my writing process. 
Sometimes friends will guilt me to coming out to the movies which I go because it is important to have social interactions because people around you are and should be your MUSE.  You never know what you see, hear or encounter which would add beautifully to one of characters or stories.  I do it for research and to step away the computer sometimes. It is healthy not to obsess otherwise you will burn yourself out.
You have a cat, Karma. How did she come into your life?                 
Karma, bless her little soul.  My best friend Lisa used to have a cat named “Princess”, she was missing an eye and she was the sweetest cat EVER.  Whenever I would go visit “Princess” would love me and make me feel comfortable. 
That being said writing can be stressful so I thought why not do a good deed and adopt a cat in need who can be my new buddy.  When I first saw “Karma”, I didn’t think she was that cute but she was so sweet and cuddly.  That type of cat I needed.  So I brought her home and gave her all my love and we have been together for 23 years. I got her when she was 5.  She is an old kitty. 
Have you ever taken any courses on “how to write” or “how to market” or … If so, are there any you’d recommend to other writers? Any books on writing you’d recommend?
Currently, I have been taking Rebecca’s Hamilton’s course and it has been an amazing journey. I am learning SO MUCH which has improved my writing tenfold.  I highly recommend writers to take advantage of this course. It is not every day you get taught by a Writing Mogul how to achieve her level of success.  She is so easy to talk to, so any questions you may have she will gladly answer them. 
Do you have a critique group? Beta readers? A street team?
I don’t except for my friends however I am trying to set up a Beta Reader group for future publications.
How would you define being “a successful writer?”
Success depends on the individual. I write for ME not for anyone else.  However, that being said, success to myself is having my book in my hands.  It is an achievement. Almost like running a marathon.  Readers do not understand the journey writers have to go through to get 1 book out.
You live in one of the most diverse cities in North America and have talked about how the multi-cultural environment energizes you. Does it frustrate you that there’s such a lack of diversity in genre literature? Particularly in PNR?
It does surprise me that this day in age our novels are lacking representations of so many diverse cultures.  However this also indicates to me that change is a slow progress still. I have started to stir the pot to say the least with adding different cultures and civilizations into my books only because I think it is about time.   You are a multi-genre writer. Did you start out in one genre and just expand? What was the genre of the first book you completed?
The first novel I ever wrote was a horror thriller. Based on my nightmares may I add.  Everything was so distinct, names, eras, everything. It had to be written down. Before I even knew it a book was produced.
Now whenever I start a novel I do 2.  2 which are completely different genres from one another, this is how I avoid writers block. 
Who are your favorite writers?
I love VC Andrews, Dean Koontz, Christopher Pike, R.L Stine & Neil Geimen.
What are you reading now?
Currently I am reading a novel by Indra Das called “The Devourers”
Tell us about your story in the Rite to Reign boxed set. How did you hear about the boxed set? And have you been in any other boxed sets?
Rebecca Hamilton, one of the Author’s I admire and look up to suggested I apply which I did and I was super surprised I was accepted. I was so happy. 
I have been in other sets; one was with K. N. Lee, another favorite author of mine.
My story in Rite to Reign boxed set is the second book to my Fallen Kingdoms Chronicle Series.  This follows the incident at the end of book 1 which is called “Lamp of Light”.  Everyone who purchases Rite to Reign Boxed set will get book 1 for free by signing up for my newsletter and commenting with a picture to prove they made their purchase and I will then send them book 1.
My Fallen Kingdoms series is dark fairytale reimagining. So think Snow White where she is the enemy and the stepmother is the innocent.  There is Black Magic, A Wendigo, Fairies and Pirate amongst any other memorable and lovable characters. 
You have really striking covers. Do you have custom covers created for your books or rely on premades?
I do both. Honestly if the premade cover captures what is in my mind then it works grand however if it does not then I will get a custom cover that paints the image of what I am looking for.
What’s next in your writing queue? Do you have the next year of writing planned out or are you flexible.
I have a total of 16 novels that have to be done for 2019.  I am super excited to start working on them.
As for current I am just finishing up on a few surprise entries. Other then that, I am done all my writing for 2018.
It has been an amazing journey.
PRE-ORDER RITE TO REIGN! Learn more about Alex on his website.
Sign up for his newsletter here.
Follow him on Goodreads.  Follow him on BookBub.  Follow him on Amazon.

The Witching Hour is here.

It's October, so it's time to think about witches!USA TODAY bestselling novelist Christine Pope invited me to join this boxed set of novels about witches and wizards and warlocks. My contribution is Magic in the Blood, which I've expanded into an actual novel. The set is full of great writers and available wide.
Buy it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, iTunes, and Google Play.

#Amazon! #RiteToReign--the best boxed set of the season

Listen up witches!!!  Rite to Reign has landed on Amazon for pre-order.
Ninety-nine cents and this is what you get:

Willful witches, supernatural sorcerers, cruel queens, and powerful priestesses fall out of favor and rise to rule in this highly sought-after collection of spellbinding stories! 

More than 20 award-winning and bestselling authors have come together to curate this bewitching boxed set collection of the best PARANORMAL ROMANCE and URBAN FANTASY books in the genre, each brimming with stories of royal magic. 

Journey through worlds of danger and mayhem, where witches and warlocks battle for influence and wizards fight for unrestricted power. 

But reader beware: the highly addictive stores in RITE TO REIGN will put you under their spell. One click to secure your limited edition copy today!  Find it here.



Featuring Stories from 

USA Today bestselling author Heather Marie Adkins 
Teresa Roman
JJ King writing with Candace Osmond
USA Today bestselling author SJ Davis writing with P. Mattern
Scott Hungerford
USA Today bestselling author Shawna Romkey
USA Today bestselling author Ash Krafton
USA Today bestselling author Christine Ashworth
Anna Santos 
Melissa Winters
Colleen S. Myers 
Andie M. Long
Alex H. Singh
Sabrina Ramoth
L.C. Ireland
Louisa Bacio
Grace White
Helen Scott
Carma Haley Shoemaker
Kyndra Hatch
Mirren Hogen & Stephanie Barr
E.B. Black
Ella Middaugh
Kat Parrish






















Tanya Dawson 

You can find it on Amazon here.

stephanie Barr Interview

Introducing writer Stephanie Barr
 Although Stephanie Barr is a slave to three children and a slew of cats, she actually leads a double life as a part time novelist and full time rocket scientist. People everywhere have learned to watch out for fear of becoming part of her stories. Beware! You might be next!…
You’re a rocket scientist! What do you do? I've done a number of things. I'm a dabbler. I've rebuilt data handling systems for ground chambers, designed ground comm systems for those same chambers (used for crew to test suit capabilities and procedures and test hardware). I've done qualification and acceptance testing for payloads going in the Mir (Russian) space station and the Space Shuttle,  wrote communication software for robotics, evaluated main engine software changes, addressed micrometeoroid/orbital debris risks, spent several years as an EVA Safety Engineer – (EVA +> when they go out in spacesuits) including more than one Hubble mission and Columbia's last flight. Now I help evaluate design changes and issues for our large launchvehicles (Delta IV and Atlas V)

If you ran the space program, what would be your priority? A manned Mars mission? A moon base? Moon base. Pretty much any technology or system we'd need on Mars we could test on the moon where we're actually close enough to do something if it went south.
Did you ever want to be an astronaut? Nope. Can't stand free fall.
You’ve been writing since you were a child, at what point did you veer into science? I've always loved science and could do math and languages. I loved all kinds of academics, including literature. I loved writing but I figured I'd need a day job, so I majored in Engineering Physics because I could get a scholarship from the Physics dep't and the Engineering College at the same time. And then I was just too stubborn to get out. I really love problem solving so it turned out to be a good choice.
In Conjuring Dreams: Learning to Write by Writing, you chronicle your writer’s journey beginning with a story you wrote when you were thirteen. In your introduction, you outline the skills for writing a short story versus longer work and how they intersect. Did you find it hard to transition to novels? Do you still write short stories? I didn't find it hard at all to transition to novels. It seemed a natural progression, though, of course, writing novels is a different beastie and it took a few tries. My first novel is still in the virtual drawer, in desperate need of a plot injection. My second novel (Curse of the Jenri) was rewritten tons of times and is full of all kinds of extremes you don't see as much in my later novels. For decades, after I sunk myself into novels, I didn't write but a handful of short stories.

Then, when I got divorced (to someone who was and still is one of my biggest writing fans), I couldn't write for months. I kind of got my feet wet with a few short stories for contests, wrote some more with a buddy (not co-writing but writing stories we exchanged and talked about) and ended up in a bunch of anthologies with enough stories left over to write another anthology, Legacy, which has some of my favorite shorts, but all from the past few years.
You write both alone and with co-authors. How is the process different? Actually, Incantation is the first novel I've written with someone else. It was a completely new experience for me. I generally write a scene at the time where I have both characters working things out. Mirren prefers to have each of us focus on different characters and write conversations one line to each other as we go. As a control freak, it took some getting used to and I had to be reprimanded several times. We're writing too more books to go with it for a three book series (seem to be her favorite), but I'm not sure I'll do this again afterwards. It was a valuable learning experience but it requires a lot of patience and compromise.
How did you meet Mirren Hogan, who co-wrote the book you have in Rite to Reign?I met her on FB in a group called The Dragon's Rocketship. I liked her work, she liked mine. We starte beta reading and doing writing sprints together, even though she lives half a world away. She's comfortable co-writing and offered me the opportunity so I took it.  
Tell me about the book you’ve written for Rite to Reign. Fortunately, Mirren are pretty compatible in the things we like to write. We both love dragons and she's pretty tolerance with my predilection to add cats. We both liked the idea of having demons and of twisting the standard fare by having male witches with the hots for each other. We started in Europe on the Mediterranean for the royal angle, but we eventually moved to Texas and threw demons, unicorns and more into the mix. It was a lot of fun.
You write both one-offs and series. What book would your readers most like to see turned into a series?I hear about moving forward with Curse of the Jenri (sword and sorcery) most often. I generally do series with the same world but different main characters (as I did with my one series, the Bete novels). I actually have two more novels planned in the Jenri world so looks like they'll get their wish.
You have a family (and cats!), do you need quiet time to write or can you work through the chaos? Do you ever listen to music as you write? If so, what’s the soundtrack of your life?i can work and write in noise. I can work with music (and I have an eclectic collection of music from show tunes to 80's to a capella to Disney I listen to for that), but I can't write to music since I listen to music with words and I end up singing or writing lyrics into my book.  
Can you write in short snatches or do you need to block out a particular length of time?In the past, I'd try to block out a chunk of time but I never really could pull that off or it would actually not work. I do better to go with snatches or just ignore the distractions and write when the mood is on me. And, when it is, I go gangbusters. When it's not, I don't write because I just have to throw it away if I write when I'm not ready.
Who was/were the writer/writers you absolutely loved when you were a teenager? Did they influence you?  Of course. McCaffery, Heinlein, Herbert, James Clavell, Georgette Heyer, Edgar Allan Poe, Victor Hugo, Shakespeare, Alexander Dumas, Piers Anthony and dozens more. And I learned from all of them, what I liked, what I didn't, what I wanted to do better, what I wanted never to do.  What’s your favorite genre to read?I'm actually not specific to genre when I read. I like books with good characters, characters that make me love them. Humor helps. Speculative fiction is great but I've got books of all stamps on my shelves.

No, wait, my daughter got me hooked on manga about ten years ago and that's what i've been reading for pleasure since. I'm an addict. (Mostly shoujo and yaoi, but some shonen ai).

What’s a book you recommend to friends? There are dozens, but I've recommended Agent of Change to multiple friends. And Georgette Heyer who wrote intelligent romances that I've managed to get several guys hooked on.
What are you writing next?  I have three novels in the works, though The Library at Castle Herriot might come next. It's modern day, set in Scotland in an old castle with a magic library the witch who lives there tries to protect. If you take a book out of the special portion of the library (which is not easy to access), it takes you, the castle and everyone in it back in the story, either through doors or, if it's a real time, to the past. And you have to play the story out in order to come back as a protagonist. One wrong choice and you're stuck.
I also have the third Bete novel bubbling around in my back brain (Twice the Man) and a sequel to Curse of the Jenri (Children of the Jenri).

I'm also organizing/editing a charity anthology of stories with disabled main characters set in the future or fantastical setting with proceeds to go to Special Olympics.

Oh, and Mirren and I ARE working on the sequel to Incantation involving a sister to our protagonist.
Social media links: 
Twitter: @stephanieebarr
FB Writing Blog: http:Newsletter Amazon Page: