Larissa Ione's Blog, page 6

An Immortal Rider Excerpt!

Hi everyone!

I posted a teeny excerpt from Immortal Rider at my Facebook page, but for those of you who don't have Facebook, I'm not sure if you can see it, so I'm posting it here. This is a very brief excerpt from Reaver's point of view. He plays a big role in Immortal Rider, and he gets himself into a TON of trouble!

Oh, and I got my German copies of Pleasure Unbound today — they're gorgeous! I'm so excited for my German readers!

Okay, so here's the excerpt from Immortal Rider:

Reaver smiled down at the pile of dead demons in the dirt at his feet. Of all his duties, his favorite was killing demons. As a battle angel of the Power order of angels, it was what he'd been bred for, and he was good at it. Sure, back when he'd been stripped of his wings and cast out of Heaven, he'd worked as a doctor at Underworld General Hospital, where he'd healed demons. But he'd been selective about who he saved, because the truth was that not all demons were evil, just as not all humans were good.

There was balance everywhere, a yin-yang thing going on since the beginning of time, and for the most part, it had worked.

Until Pestilence's Seal had broken, and now the balance between good and evil was rapidly shifting…and not in the favor of good. Evil was spilling out of Sheoul and was infecting humans everywhere, including here, in this remote Polish village where people had turned on each other, not knowing that their actions had been influenced by the demons Reaver had just killed.

Gethel, the angel who had been the Horsemen's good Watcher before he'd taken the assignment a little over a year ago, emerged from inside one of the houses where a family had been slaughtered.

"All souls have crossed over," she said, as she glided toward him. "But far too many crossed to the wrong side."

That was the problem with the kind of evil they were dealing with now. Too many humans who wouldn't normally fall to darkness were allowing evil into their bodies and minds. In the battle for souls, Heaven had always had the advantage, but even that was starting to change.

Gethel eyed the dead demons, her lip curling in distaste. "Your power is impressive, Reaver. I can see why you were chosen as my replacement." Smiling, she spread her wings — white, shot through with gold — and seemed to do some sort of pre-flight check as she folded and unfolded them again. "Give Limos my best. I do miss her. And Reseph." Her smile turned sad. "He was the one I thought might retain some humanity even after his Seal broke."

"I did too." Reaver lifted his hand in the stick-in-the-ass formal manner his fellow angels were so fond of. "Fare well, Gethel."

She lifted off so fast that even Reaver would have missed it if he'd blinked. Around him, the dead demons disintegrated, as they always did in the human realm — unless they were shapeshifters or weres, or of a species that appeared human. Basically, if they couldn't pass as human, they decomposed in a matter of seconds.

His scalp prickled, a split-second of warning before Harvester materialized.

"Hello, you sexy beast," she said, the sarcasm in her voice setting his teeth on edge. She stood before him, her shiny hair and wings as black as her soul.

"What do you want? I have things to do." Namely, he had to respond to the summoning that had become a fizzy tug on his insides in the last few minutes.

Thanatos was calling him, and Reaver wondered what was up. The Horsemen didn't screw around with a summons, though sometimes Reaver wished they would. Would it really hurt them to summon him for, say, a barbecue? Or for one of Limos's beach parties? Angels had to eat too.

"I merely longed to gaze upon your angelic handsomeness." Harvester batted her eyelashes, and Reaver snorted.

"I think it's more likely you came to smash me under a mountain again." He gestured to the countryside. "And you have an entire mountain range to work with."

Video Chat Tomorrow!

Hi everyone!

Just wanted to let you know that tomorrow I'll be doing a live video chat with Caridad Pineiro! She's a fabulous, funny lady who writes awesome paranormal romances, so I'm thrilled to be doing the chat with her. Hope you can join us!

Just come back here tomorrow at 9 EST and use the widget to enter the chat (or you can take the widget and put it on your own site to use!

Get the Caridad Pineiro Live Video AuthorChats widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)

Contest Winners!

Thanks to everyone for contributing to my "working title" contest for Reseph's book! OMG, I absolutely LOVE so many of the suggestions! Some cracked me up — Toxic Rider, Endemic Rider, Infectious Rider, Septic Rider…LOL!

I'll probably go with one of the funny ones as a working title, but there are some AWESOME serious ones. I'm saving the post to send to my editor so we can go over the suggestions. I have a few favorites, so we'll see if any make it to the final book!

Okay, so the winners of the excerpt booklet, Samhain GC, and various goodies, chosen by Random.org are:

Amy Bruckart, comment #79

Shanna, comment #160

Janet, comment #218

Congrats, ladies! Please email me at larissaione AT gmail.com with your mailing address!

If you didn't win, there will be more opportunities coming up!

Wanna Win Stuff?

Okay, so I turned in my copyedits, updated my website, and before I dive into Lethal Rider to finish it, I'm putting up a contest!

Three winners will receive:

A signed copy of the Taste of Darkness excerpt booklet, which includes the first 3 chapters of Immortal Rider, a Samhain gift card that'll buy you a free book (thanks, Samhain!) a swag of some sort (it may be a jar opener, post-it pad, etc.) and a set of Demonica gift cards made by KLB Virtual Events and Designs (there's even a special "Demon Juice" card!)

Trivia: Remember when I showed you the pics from the Immortal Rider cover shoot? Well, the cover from Taste of Darkness was taken from that shoot! If you look close at the TOD cover and Immortal Rider covers, you can see that it's the same couple.

Okay, so how do you enter to win? Well, I need a working title for the fourth book in the Lords of Deliverance series, so just leave a comment with your suggestion. It'll be Reseph's book (who is the Horseman known as Pestilence,) and the title must be "Something" Rider.

Random.org will select three winners at random on Sunday. Good luck!

Lethal Rider UK Cover!

Hi everyone!

Sorry I've been so out of touch! Between deadlines and the RWA conference, I've been unplugged or on vacation!

Well, I'm back, and I have a new cover to share with you! This is the UK cover for Lethal Rider, the third book in the Lords of Deliverance series. It will release next summer, and it's Thanatos's book. I can't wait — and this is a gorgeous cover!!!!!

Hope all is well with you! Stay tuned, because as soon as I get Immortal Rider copyedits turned in, I'll post a couple of contests. And boy, are you in for a treat with Immortal Rider, because if you're a Reaver fan, there's lots of him — in a bad, bad way.

Happy Tuesday!

Okay, yeah, I've been lying low for a while! June has been a busy month between my son's graduation from 8th grade, several birthdays, a deadline, an upcoming release, and the Romance Writers of America conference.

I'll be heading to New York next week (hubby and I are going to invade Stephanie Tyler's house and bug them until the conference starts, so I'll try to post pics from NYC as I can. Not sure about internet connection yet, but I can definitely Tweet and Facebook pics with my phone. I'm getting super excited!

For anyone who will be in the NYC area, there will be a booksigning open to the public — HUNDREDS of authors will be attending, and the signing will be held on the same day that Taken By Fire releases!

Here's the info:

Tuesday, June 28, from 5:30–7:30 p.m. at the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square in the Broadway Ballroom. Open to the public, and there is no admittance fee. Click here for the list of attending authors.

Hope to see you there!

Taken By Fire is an RT Top Pick!

Great news! For the first time, a Sydney Croft book got a TOP PICK review from Romantic Times Book Reviews Magazine! And actually, it's the first time for ANY of my books, Ione titles included. I think it's Stephanie's first, as well.

Yay! I'm so thrilled. Taken By Fire rates up there as one of my favorite ACRO titles, and I think it wraps up the series perfectly. I'm VERY happy with it, and I hope readers are too!

Here's the review:

Creative interwoven subplots bring together all the remaining agents of the ACRO forces for the final book in the series. The gripping, fast-paced story adds fascinating characters to the already talented mix and the sex burns up the pages.

Woot! Only a month until release now, and Stephanie and I are getting excited! And if you haven't read the series yet, don't forget, all of the books (except the newest, Tempting The Fire,) are all on sale in ebook format!

Happy Thursday, everyone!

Eternal Rider-Inspired Book Thong!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Just wanted to share with you a link from Stupid Shiny Designs.

At the Etsy shop, you can buy book thongs that are inspired by novels and series.

The newest is inspired by Eternal Rider. Now you, too, can take Battle with you wherever you go. And just in time for the Rapture! *g*

Be sure to check out her entire store. Lots of neat stuff!

Have a great weekend!

The Zombie Apocalypse…Are YOU Prepared?

In light of Saturday's Rapture, I thought that now might be a good time to raise awareness for disaster situations — especially if Judgement Day doesn't actually happen, or if it does, for those like me, who will be happily left behind.

After all, these rapture people don't believe animals will go to heaven, and seriously, what kind of Heaven is that??? They can have it.

Besides, with all the righteous non-sinners off the planet, it'll be mine to rule. What? I have goals, you know.

Anyway, so even the CDC is in on the zombie apocalypse, or, as we say in our house, zombiepocalypse. Are you prepared?

Zombiepocalypse ahoy!!!!!

Now, I must go prepare for Saturday's Rapture party. Barbecue! Drinks! Cake! (This had best not screw up my 2012 Mayan apocalypse plans…)

Sex and Violence in Young Adult Novels

Okay, so this is a topic that may get people riled up. Bear with me here…

As a frequent hanger-arounder on Twitter, Facebook, and the internet in general, I see a LOT of complaints from parents about sexual content in Young Adult novels. These same parents don't ask about the levels of violence…and let me tell you, Young Adult novels can be SERIOUSLY violent and grim.

So, as an author of books that are chock full of both sex and violence, I was stumped at the idea that parents were fine with their kids reading about children killing other children, about kids being subjected to torture and death, etc.

I mean, I know parents who are cool with their kids watching slasher movies, but if a love scene comes on a prime time show, it's like, OMG, COVER YOUR EYES!!!! And let's not even talk about a gay kiss on TV.

Seriously…this baffled me.

To me, sex is not something to be ashamed of. It's natural, and between consenting adults, it can be beautiful. It's a way of expressing emotion. It's a way to communicate. In books, it's also a powerful way to show characterization. How a character reacts to sex can tell a lot about them. SO much can be revealed about characters and their relationships in a sex scene, which is why I never close the bedroom door in my books.

So…to sum this up, I am 100% cool with sex in romance. And again, I've been baffled by the, "Violence is okay in YA but is there sex???" questions. (And actually, I'm STILL baffled about that in adult fiction too, but that's another blog post.)

But the YA thing kind of makes sense to me now.

See, I have a 14 YO son. I buy him a lot of YA because the kid reads like a maniac, like I did at his age. Except I was already on adult books by his age — Stephen King, Clive Barker, Dean Koontz. I was reading straight-out horror at his age.

And I started thinking…I turned out to be fine. My parents let me read horror, let me watch horror movies. But why? Weren't they afraid that I'd turn into a chainsaw killer? Weren't they afraid I'd go to school and beat my classmates to death with baseball bats or burn down a building?

No, they weren't, because they knew I wasn't mentally unstable, and a book wasn't going to change that. But I'll bet they wouldn't have let me read a sexy romance. Why?

I think it's because, even though sex (to me,) is natural and nothing to be ashamed of, we know it's going to happen. Our kids are curious, and sex is…well, it feels good, right? Their bodies are growing, and they are a mass of raging hormones when they hit the teen years. But most of us know our kids aren't violent. Reading a violent book isn't going to turn them violent. I read a lot of horror novels and never once wondered what it would be like to hack someone to death with an axe.

But sex? Yeah…I wondered. Because I was normal.

So what it comes down to, (I think, for some parents,) is that in the grand scheme of things, violence DOESN'T feel good for normal people. It isn't fun. We don't fantasize about it the way we do sex. It might be interesting to read about, but in reality, it's full of pain and shame, and it gets people killed. We know our normal teens aren't going to go out and commit atrocities. Reading about it isn't going to change that for NORMAL kids. And any kid prone to violence is going to act out eventually anyway (and by the teen years, it's pretty obvious which ones are the ones who need to be watched.)

On the other hand, NORMAL teens will want sex. Maybe not now, but eventually. It WILL happen. So I think parents who are concerned about sexual content are concerned that it's going to make a curious kid even more curious. Where with violence…probably not.

So anyway, I think for some these parents, it might not be a "prude" thing, but more a matter of, "I know my kid isn't going to go on a killing rampage, but sex is normal and fun…and it's not time for him/her to deal with that yet."

Yes, there are definitely people who are more conservative and those who think sex is worse than violence, but I'm not talking about those ones here.

I'm talking about the ones who aren't quite sure why they're okay with violence but not sex, and are feeling it out at more of a psychological level…as in, deep down, we humans are capable of violence, but we don't LIKE it. We're not going to DO it. But sex…natural, fun, and we WILL do it.

I also think that nothing is going to substitute talking to kids about the realities of sex (and the realities of violence) so that when they do read about these things or see them on TV, they understand all consequences. Making sex a non-taboo subject may help…we talk to our son pretty openly about it so he's not afraid to come to us. We also talk to him about the reality of violence and how making others hurt is not okay. Not people, not animals.

I want my son to read whatever he wants to read (okay, I do have exceptions…at 14 he is SO not reading the Anne Rice/A.N. Roqeulaure erotica novels,) and I want him to have a good foundation so that he understands what he's reading. I think YA can portray sex, relationships, drug abuse, eating disorders, etc., in lights that make teens think and can ultimately help.

It all comes down to knowing your kids and knowing what they're reading.

Okay, so long post over. Just had to throw some thoughts out there, since I'm in the process of buying a ton of books for my son. I had YA on the brain!

So what about you…do your teens read YA, or are they onto more adult books? I'm trying to decide where to go with my son from here!