Mark Henwick's Blog - Posts Tagged "bite-back"
Schedules and projects
Book 2 in the Bite Back series, Hidden Trump, is now with the editor. Time to start thinking about blurbs and cover images for Hidden Trump and marketing for Sleight of Hand, both of which were on hold while I was writing.
So what's next?
A short story prequel - Hacha del Diablo.
A short novel - Bian's Tale.
Book 3 in the Bite Back series.
I will update this blog with schedules!
So what's next?
A short story prequel - Hacha del Diablo.
A short novel - Bian's Tale.
Book 3 in the Bite Back series.
I will update this blog with schedules!
Progress on next in series
Hidden Trump, Bite Back 2, is back from the editor and needs work.
I'll post when I've got further into the work, but my guess is a delay of a few weeks.
I'll post when I've got further into the work, but my guess is a delay of a few weeks.
An Unexpected Review
Please visit the magazine site (link below) and read the full review, but I just have to share the closing comments…
This is a review by Charles de Lint, one of the godparents of Urban Fantasy. He’s one of my writing heroes. His other occupation is a professional reviewer for the Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine.
So…it was with considerable trepidation I saw the email from the magazine saying that Charles had reviewed Bite Back; both print book versions of Sleight of Hand and Hidden Trump. OMG.
I didn’t approach the magazine for a review, and hadn’t provided the books to them.
The full text of the review appears in the July issue. You can read it on the website
http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2013/cdl130...
Scroll down a couple of screens.
#HeadSwelling
“If you don’t like these books, you probably shouldn’t be reading urban fantasy, because they represent some of the best the field has to offer. I still can’t quite put my finger on how Henwick has made the tropes feel so fresh. I’m just glad he has.”
This is a review by Charles de Lint, one of the godparents of Urban Fantasy. He’s one of my writing heroes. His other occupation is a professional reviewer for the Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine.
So…it was with considerable trepidation I saw the email from the magazine saying that Charles had reviewed Bite Back; both print book versions of Sleight of Hand and Hidden Trump. OMG.
I didn’t approach the magazine for a review, and hadn’t provided the books to them.
The full text of the review appears in the July issue. You can read it on the website
http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2013/cdl130...
Scroll down a couple of screens.
#HeadSwelling
Cool Hand
It's on Amazon and Kobo now!
Book 4 in the Bite Back series...
Book 4 in the Bite Back series...
Bite Back Book 5!
Angel Stakes will be released this week on Friday 15th April 2016.
Here's the opening few paragraphs:
Floating…
Floating down the river of night toward the city of dreams…
Our Lady, Queen of Angels. Where the long dragon spine of San Gabriel sprawls over the trembling San Andreas Fault and four million people cluster in its shadow. Bad Feng Shui, the Chinese mutter, and spit to clear their luck.
Los Angeles. Where glittering streets of plenty cut like knives through the desperate barrios. Where gangs and cults, earthquakes and hill fires, riots and despair and madness, all simmer just beneath the surface, waiting, like the abiding desert, to erupt out through the drains and engulf the city.
LA. The laconic arrogance in the initials of the city that lives, full of myth, pulsing with tales. The city that feeds on dreams, leaving nothing but dust and nightmares.
And we are such stuff as dreams are made. Or nightmares.
Here's the opening few paragraphs:
Floating…
Floating down the river of night toward the city of dreams…
Our Lady, Queen of Angels. Where the long dragon spine of San Gabriel sprawls over the trembling San Andreas Fault and four million people cluster in its shadow. Bad Feng Shui, the Chinese mutter, and spit to clear their luck.
Los Angeles. Where glittering streets of plenty cut like knives through the desperate barrios. Where gangs and cults, earthquakes and hill fires, riots and despair and madness, all simmer just beneath the surface, waiting, like the abiding desert, to erupt out through the drains and engulf the city.
LA. The laconic arrogance in the initials of the city that lives, full of myth, pulsing with tales. The city that feeds on dreams, leaving nothing but dust and nightmares.
And we are such stuff as dreams are made. Or nightmares.
How they tie together!
I've been prompted by a discussion with a reader to explain the relationship between the novellas and the novels in the Athanate universe. Here goes!
The Bite Back series provides the main thread:
Sleight of Hand
Hidden Trump
Wild Card
Cool Hand
Angel Stakes
(Book 6 is being written now and is called Inside Straight)
The first two novellas, The Biting Cold and Winter's Kiss, form 2 parts of an expected 3 novella companion series. They follow a psychiatrist, Amanda Lloyd, from Detroit. The timeframe is actually the same as the last part of Angel Stakes, and mentions are made in Angel Stakes of matters happening in Michigan that directly affect what happens in LA.
SEMI SPOILER ALERT: Characters from this series turn up in Denver for the beginning of Inside Straight.
Now, you don't have to read these two novellas to understand what's going on in Inside Straight, but it will give background to those characters, and the response to the novellas has been good. They're short (20k and 40k words, as opposed to something like Sleight of Hand, which is 120k words).
The Biting Cold was written originally intending to be a stand-alone short story in the Athanate universe and also to be slightly more focused on the romantic aspect (hence the covers!), but there's action as well, certainly in Winter's Kiss.
The Biting Cold: An Athanate Novella
Winter's Kiss: An Athanate Novella
I am possibly going to write a 3rd novella in this series, which will provide Amanda's view, as opposed to Amber's, of some of the events of Inside Straight.
The third novella is Change of Regime. This is a different set of characters, set in New York as Skylur moves his mantle from Denver at the end of Angel Stakes. So the action takes place between the end of Angel Stakes and overlapping the beginning of Inside Straight. No characters (aside from Skylur) cross over, but things that are going in are commented on. The novella is 25k words long. I'm intending to write a follow-up to it called Rapture, and possibly another, but don't currently expect more characters to turn up in the main Bite Back series.
Change of Regime: An Athanate novella
The other novel series is a huge prequel to the Bite Back series, and that's Bian's Tale. Book 1, Harvest of Lies, is out and I hope to get book 2 done next year. I'm intending there will be about 5 of these, eash a bit shorter and simpler than the main Bite Back books. They cover the time from Bian's first encounters with the Athanate world in 1890 Saigon, to her becoming Diakon of House Altau, a few years before she meets Amber for the first time.
The Harvest of Lies: An Athanate Novel of Nineteenth Century Saigon
So... those are the novels and novellas that are linked together to produce the whole Bite Back world.
There is one other Athanate novella, which is a stand-alone, and which I *may* write a sequel to. That's Enzili (Enzili is a voodoo goddess). It's set in the West Indies, at the end of the 18th Century and I currently have no plans to integrate this into the Bite Back canon.
If you've read the novellas, I would very much appreciate feedback - a comment on here, or a review on GR or the 'Zon. :-)
The Bite Back series provides the main thread:
Sleight of Hand
Hidden Trump
Wild Card
Cool Hand
Angel Stakes
(Book 6 is being written now and is called Inside Straight)
The first two novellas, The Biting Cold and Winter's Kiss, form 2 parts of an expected 3 novella companion series. They follow a psychiatrist, Amanda Lloyd, from Detroit. The timeframe is actually the same as the last part of Angel Stakes, and mentions are made in Angel Stakes of matters happening in Michigan that directly affect what happens in LA.
SEMI SPOILER ALERT: Characters from this series turn up in Denver for the beginning of Inside Straight.
Now, you don't have to read these two novellas to understand what's going on in Inside Straight, but it will give background to those characters, and the response to the novellas has been good. They're short (20k and 40k words, as opposed to something like Sleight of Hand, which is 120k words).
The Biting Cold was written originally intending to be a stand-alone short story in the Athanate universe and also to be slightly more focused on the romantic aspect (hence the covers!), but there's action as well, certainly in Winter's Kiss.
The Biting Cold: An Athanate Novella
Winter's Kiss: An Athanate Novella
I am possibly going to write a 3rd novella in this series, which will provide Amanda's view, as opposed to Amber's, of some of the events of Inside Straight.
The third novella is Change of Regime. This is a different set of characters, set in New York as Skylur moves his mantle from Denver at the end of Angel Stakes. So the action takes place between the end of Angel Stakes and overlapping the beginning of Inside Straight. No characters (aside from Skylur) cross over, but things that are going in are commented on. The novella is 25k words long. I'm intending to write a follow-up to it called Rapture, and possibly another, but don't currently expect more characters to turn up in the main Bite Back series.
Change of Regime: An Athanate novella
The other novel series is a huge prequel to the Bite Back series, and that's Bian's Tale. Book 1, Harvest of Lies, is out and I hope to get book 2 done next year. I'm intending there will be about 5 of these, eash a bit shorter and simpler than the main Bite Back books. They cover the time from Bian's first encounters with the Athanate world in 1890 Saigon, to her becoming Diakon of House Altau, a few years before she meets Amber for the first time.
The Harvest of Lies: An Athanate Novel of Nineteenth Century Saigon
So... those are the novels and novellas that are linked together to produce the whole Bite Back world.
There is one other Athanate novella, which is a stand-alone, and which I *may* write a sequel to. That's Enzili (Enzili is a voodoo goddess). It's set in the West Indies, at the end of the 18th Century and I currently have no plans to integrate this into the Bite Back canon.
If you've read the novellas, I would very much appreciate feedback - a comment on here, or a review on GR or the 'Zon. :-)
Book 6 in Bite Back series
An outcast Athanate House with rebel Adept kin plead for sanctuary.
Amber's decision throws her into the terrifying world of the most secretive of paranormal races - the Adepts.
Will she risk everything, even her own soul, to save the world?
Another white-knuckle ride on Amazon at
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...
Amber's decision throws her into the terrifying world of the most secretive of paranormal races - the Adepts.
Will she risk everything, even her own soul, to save the world?
Another white-knuckle ride on Amazon at
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...
Promo price box sets
Promotional 99c/99p pricing on box sets for the launch of Bite Back Book 7, Queen of Diamonds. (Links at the bottom)
“Some of the best the field has to offer” – Charles de Lint, Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Take a white-knuckle ride with Amber Farrell, ex-Special Forces, now private investigator, and discover a lethal paranormal war in the shadows that threatens the whole world.
"The politics of the Athanate (vampires), the hair-trigger passions of the Were, the awesome powers of the Adepts... Henwick takes UF tropes and gives them a fresh twist in an intriguing saga."
Launch into this immersive series and savor the intense storylines, fully developed, realistic characters and exceptional world building.
Promotional pricing on box sets in advance of the publication of book 7 in the Bite Back series, Queen of Diamonds on January 28. Normal pricing resumes afterwards :-)
Get started now!
Box set 1 (books 1-3) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZM5HNK2/
Box set 2 (books 4-6)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZQM2RZ5/
Book 7, Queen of Diamonds
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCHB272
“Some of the best the field has to offer” – Charles de Lint, Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Take a white-knuckle ride with Amber Farrell, ex-Special Forces, now private investigator, and discover a lethal paranormal war in the shadows that threatens the whole world.
"The politics of the Athanate (vampires), the hair-trigger passions of the Were, the awesome powers of the Adepts... Henwick takes UF tropes and gives them a fresh twist in an intriguing saga."
Launch into this immersive series and savor the intense storylines, fully developed, realistic characters and exceptional world building.
Promotional pricing on box sets in advance of the publication of book 7 in the Bite Back series, Queen of Diamonds on January 28. Normal pricing resumes afterwards :-)
Get started now!
Box set 1 (books 1-3) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZM5HNK2/
Box set 2 (books 4-6)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZQM2RZ5/
Book 7, Queen of Diamonds
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TCHB272
