V.J. Chambers's Blog, page 5
March 16, 2022
Our Vast and Yearning Ends, Rise of the Death Fae, Book Four
Having survived one attack on their lives, the Night King and Sun Queen shouldn’t be surprised when another attempt is made. But they are.
In the Eeslia, Larent, Onivia, Cassus, and Isha are halted at the entrance to the Cyria villa by fae guards, who claim that their leader, a powerful woman with magic, must grant them entry. No one is more surprised than Onivia to discover this powerful woman is her estranged Aunt Toria.
In the north, Albus’s and Galvina’s domestic retreat is shattered by the arrival of Renccius, Albus’s friend and sometime lover, who comes from Albus’s brother Magnerius with an offer. Magnerius is making a bid for power. He wants to wrest the Vostrian empire back from the fae.
February 24, 2022
Tempted by Tentacles, Alien Gladiator Kings, Book Three
A female outlaw
I hate the Toth, the cruel aliens who rule our galaxy, and Caspe Tetrone does their dirty work.
He is my enemy, and any day I ruin his is a good one.
Sure, he’s just saved my life from that crazed alien gladiator who was ten hisecs away from goring me, but…this does not mean I’m grateful.
It definitely doesn’t mean I’m hot for his tentacles.
An alien pirate
I hate Sienne Dlach, and I want her dead.
Which is why, the minute she’s about to be ripped apart, I step in and save her, at much danger and inconvenience to my life and business.
It makes sense, though, I swear, because I, uh, you know, it’s a hate-attraction thing.
All I want to do is restrain her with my tentacles, shove the tips in every available orifice, and suction cup all her sensitive body parts until she—
Look, I really do hate her, but now we’re on the run together from the Toth, engaging in firefights with police ships in space, fighting furry predators planetside, and the thing is… we’re kind of a great team. I’ve never felt anything like this before. Some (idiotic) part of me wants it to be something more than hate sex and near-death escapes, but…
Well, that would make me stupid and vulnerable, and those are two things I’ll never be.
January 26, 2022
Strawberry Fields Forever, The Helicon Muses: 6
Buy it here.
Numb.
That’s what Nora Sparrow is.
In the wake of the destruction that Owen Asher wreaked on Helicon, her home, and after everything she did to attempt to rein him in, she is defeated and lost.
A series of blows weights her further down as Coeus Dust dies, Phoebe Rain steps down from the council in her grief, and Maddie Salt succumbs again to her anorexic tendencies.
As long-running relationships around her crumble, Nora struggles to know how to respond to the advances of half-fairy Roth River.
It’s not until May Day, when Owen bursts back into Helicon, full of the power of the Influence, that the gang is shocked back into action.
It will take everything they have within them to stop him.
And, of course, it would be easier to focus on all that if they weren’t also dealing with cheating, heartbreak, and threesomes.
Buy it here.
January 4, 2022
The Swell and Crash of Surrender, Rise of the Death Fae, Book Three
Release date: 1/13/22
The capital erupts. Their forces swollen with the raised dead, the fae armies overwhelm the empire’s legions and crush them in one bloody day. In the wake of the battle…
Magdalia tries to make her husband Duranth, the Croith, see that their magic has no concern for their people. It only wants blood. Can she hold it back, or will she and her king be swallowed whole in the ecstatic madness of dark power?
Naxus Albus, dux bellorum, deserts the legions for the love of a woman he calls Galvia. What he doesn’t know is that she’s a fae spy, and that she was sent by his half brother Larent to destroy him.
Olirius Cassus knows the fae woman Isha in his cage is useless to him in the wake of the capital’s demise. He should kill her. But it does seem a waste to destroy something so pretty.
Prantia Onivia is safe on the other side of the mountains in Emmessia, where she will do anything to protect her unborn child, even court the attention of the Emmessian emperor.
Legatus Larent isn’t dead for some reason, even though that’s what he deserves. If he can’t die, he’ll protect his people, even if that means protecting them from their own Night King, who is increasingly erratic and violent. Above all, most importantly, he’ll stay away from Onivia. Forever.
January 3, 2022
Scaly Surrender: Alien Gladiator Kings, Book Two
A female prize
I know I’m going to be claimed on the floor of the arena by a brutal alien gladiator, but does it have to be him?
The cocky Lizard King, a showman who seems to act like he enjoys this, parading and preening for the crowd?
The one with two penises?
But it is him, of course it is, and when he takes me, he’s some odd combination of cruel and considerate, and it’s good—stars, it’s good—it doesn’t have any right to be that good.
At least I know our species aren’t compatible. No matter what, we could never have offspring.
A ruined fighter
This girl is different. I don’t know why. I don’t want it to be true, but there’s something about her.
When I have her in the ring, I hope my handler doesn’t notice. He’s the cruelest man I know, and he delights in manipulating me. But no way do I ever catch a break. So, when I climb aboard our ship, he’s got her there, all for me, he says.
He has plans for her, to alter her, make her breedable.
He’s just the sort of psycho to try to force that. It’ll be fun for him.
But I vow I will never touch her again.
This steamy scifi romance is for adventurous readers who won’t be troubled by very bad words, breeding kinks, murky consent due to chemically-induced arousal (everyone enjoys themselves, though, I swear), and dark themes as characters are pitted against oppressive, cruel alien overlords. HEA guaranteed.
December 25, 2021
A Caress of Bones, Wren Delacroix, Book Nine
Poppy Morgan has been married four times, and none of her husbands survived their wedding nights. She’s a black widow killer, a woman who marries men and kills them one after another, and she’s in custody in New York state.
Wren Delacroix gets a call to fly up there and interrogate Poppy. It seems that Poppy is holding a police officer captive in a secret location. She’s given him a slow-acting poison.
The local police department wants Wren to get Poppy to give up the location of the officer in time for an antidote to be given. The clock is ticking.
Reilly can’t come along, because he’s still recovering from a gunshot wound, so Wren’s flying solo on this.
She can handle it.
She can get everything she needs from Poppy Morgan.
No problem.
Wren’s not distracted by the results of that pregnancy test.
At all.
November 30, 2021
Star Savage: Alien Gladiator Kings, Book One
A human female
Three vicious alien gladiators fight to the death for their prize.
Me.
I’m thrown to the one left standing to be used and claimed on the floor of the arena. The winner is a clawed and horned beast who should only frighten me, not excite me.
But when his anchor strands attach between my thighs, they vibrate, and I’m seeing stars.
An alien king
She’s a means to an end. I’ve got to win this fight and claim this prize. I’ve got to please the crowd.
If I do it right, I have my freedom, and I can finally go home to be chieftain to my clan.
But when I attach to her, my mating instinct rises, and I lose every vestige of control as I take her.
I don’t understand it, but this human prize is my mate.
October 29, 2021
Friday blog, October 29, 2021: Aliens!
Okay, I guess today I’m going to blog about how I’m writing sci-fi alien romance.
I have this problem with sticking to genres. I like write in ALL the genres, so this is why I have seventy zillion pen names littered like space dust across the ruins of the Amazon wasteland, and I know I mixed my metaphors there. I did it to be hyperbolic. Or something. I call it a wasteland, because I’m kind of fickle about it. I’ll write something and then if it doesn’t rise to my expectations of success, I just jettison it and move on to something else and then it just sits there, sinking in the rankings sadly with no one reading it. I have so. many. books just dead in the store that no one has even looked at in months or years. So many. I used to be really broken up over this, but I have come to accept that this is how my writing career works. Some people have other writing careers, but this is mine, and it could be better, but it is, like, a career, so, that is a huge. It’s like when actors are all, “Well, I’m just grateful to be working.” I’m just grateful to be selling any books at all. Thank you, readers. Thank you. I am humbled and pleased by your attentions. (There’s likely some fault to be laid at my own feet for giving up on things prematurely.)
Also, even when things are going really well and being really successful, I’ll get a call, like a small voice, just begging me to go to the dark side and try a new genre.
So, that is what happened with the space alien romance.
I knew I was not allowed to read it, because I knew I would want to write it. I would see it, and I was all, “Val, you have enough genres as it is. NO! Bad writer. Stay away from the shiny.”
But then, when no one was looking, I just sneaked a little Ice Planet Barbarians?
Um.
Yeah, I was right. I wanted to write it right away and thus began the gorge-fest of all the alien romance, just stuffing myself full of hot, hard, muscled alien, uh, words.
Anyway, so I’m doing a trilogy, because go big or go home. We’ll see if I think it’s worth it to continue. I’ve hopefully created a universe that’ll be big enough that I can keep playing in it or for a while if I want to.
I do think that these days, you can’t just break into a genre with three books and a small facebook ad spend, so I put the odds at even that I get discouraged and drop out. It’s fun, but I don’t have the same kind of love for this that I do for romantic fantasy, basically because the sci-fi romance is a little silly, just by the nature of it. (The universe is peopled with other species, all of whom have the basically same anatomy as humans, except with clit-stimulating enhancements, and ALL their females have died and they all have MATING BONDS and are deep down cinnamon rolls even if they legit, like, non-con you first. I mean, silly, but in all the best ways. *toe curl*)
I’ve attempted to embrace the silly, but… well, I am me. I did my best, okay! I promise it’s not super dark and serious, and that there is so much hot, deviant, monster sex! (Because that is obviously the point of the genre, in case you hadn’t noticed) And one thing I don’t like about it is this tendency for each series to be about the same alien species. Like, no! I want to read about a different freaky alien in every book, puh-lease. So, I am doing fur first, scales second, and finishing up with tentacles. (Eee!)
*fans self*
What are we talking about?
In other news, my Val Saintcrowe Death Fae books are hanging in nicely, and that’s fantabulous. I am working on edits of the two final books in the series, and I am just having crises with them. I really want them perfect, and I feel like there’s something wrong with the Larent-Onivia arc, and I just… I can’t… I’ll figure it out. But I would like to get the third book up for pre-order here, I’m just afraid to commit because I feel like I might need to do another rewrite?
I do have a title! It is going to be called The Crest and Swell of Surrender. Or maybe it’s switched. The Swell and Crest of Surrender? Chime in with which you like better if you want.
See you next Friday!
October 15, 2021
Friday blog, October 15, 2021: more Helicon news
So, more Helicon news!
I have completed the first draft of Strawberry Fields Forever (more on the titling conventions of these books later) and I have also finished my very light fix-the-cringe rewrite of the books, so you can read them now, if you want.
The first book, Dancing Days, is free.
And I’ve made the Omnibus of the first four books only $5.99.
So, the light rewrite could not fix all the cringe, and I had to just leave some of it. One thing to note is that they are kids, and they are on a journey, and so even if you’re like, “Argh,” remember they might grow out of it.
Big changes if you’re a fan and not planning on rereading the series:
-I swapped the term non-binary for androgyne, since that’s where we seem to have settled as a society. Genderqueer is also out there as a possibility, but I went for non-binary.
-In the first book, Sawyer originally made a comment about not being transgender and he also ruefully says something about his opinion of his gender not mattering because they do not have “sex-change operations” in Helicon. I did away with all of this. Obviously, Sawyer *is* transgender, but he’s non-binary. I also cut any mentions of Sawyer and surgery, because he typically experiences no physical dysphoria with his genitalia and doesn’t necessarily want it, but if I do mention surgery, I say surgery, not that gross term. *shudder*
-In general, Sawyer’s journey remains intact, but I do want to note that I mostly made Sawyer deny his bisexuality because I felt like, if I were a boy reading the book and I identified with Sawyer, that I might not feel represented, especially when Sawyer is in a relationship with a girl for a large chunk of the series. So when Sawyer was in a relationship with a guy, I made him all with the gay affirmations. Anyway, don’t expect more bisexual erasure in book six, because I’m done with that. So, again, it’s a journey.
-Agler effing Thorn…. Okay, so when Agler and Maddie hook up in Come Together, it was one of those things that routinely happens to me as a writer, where I put it on the outline, and then I’m writing it, and I’m like, “Feck, this is really visceral and intense and WTF, Agler??” Like, maybe it’s not rape, but it’s… Anyway, if I were writing this book now, I would have pivoted and dealt better with it, but I did not, and I could not in my rewrites either, because it would have required rewriting not only Come Together but Over the Hills and Echoes. So, all I did do was to stop making Maddie chirp up with how consenting she was to that travesty ALL the time. (Like, I just want to acknowledge that whole clusterf*ck is way more complicated than what it is and … Agler, seriously, WTF?) I’m not saying that Maddie was *not* consenting, because she very vocally asks him to do it, but! She’s clearly making that choice for terrible reasons, and he is too drunk to notice. Then, it’s happening, and she’s clearly not into it, and he does. not. notice. until too late. So. It’s gross. I just tried to acknowledge that grossness a bit more in the rewrite. Best I could do.
Titling conventions! So, all the titles in this series come from either Led Zeppelin songs, Pink Floyd songs, and Beatles songs. In that order, in fact. There were originally going to be ten books, but I ran out of steam obviously, so six books. The last book was supposed to be called Helter Skelter, but after Echoes being so dark, I figured we’d just go for Strawberry Fields.
Anyway, that’s the news from Helicon.
Also, I’m doing a writing challenge next week, so there will be no blog.
See you guys in two weeks.
October 8, 2021
Friday blog, October 8, 2021
It’s Friday, and I have nothing to blog about, you guys!
Rather than just skip the week entirely, I think I’ll instead gush about how great the Thrusts and Crests and Fury launch is going! So great! Battles of Salt and Sighs jumped up to #30,000 in the Amazon store and I’m suddenly making a profit on my ads, and it’s seriously the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to my entire pen name, which is my heart and soul and joy, and I just want to give everyone who read the book a really big hug!!!
And yes, the titles of these books are supposed to be like, Collision of Sexy Words with Fighting Words. How’m I doing?
Okay, well, honestly, I don’t have much more to say than that, so! If you haven’t read them yet, here’s a link to book #1. It is super, super dark fae fantasy. It’s basically An Ember in the Ashes meets The Silence of the Girls with fae.
I really hope they keep selling! Thank you to everyone who has purchased or borrowed. I could kiss you. <3
