Kathleen Collins's Blog, page 6

Two Days!!

We’re two days away from the release of Blood Slave! I hope you all are excited as I am. I’ve gotten a lovely early review from Vampire Book Club if you want to take a peek.

Vampire Book Club Review

Another contest

Hey all, this time you have the chance an autographed copy of any book of mine of your choosing. Open to international readers.

All you have to do is go to my Facebook page and like the post. :) Good luck. www.facebook.com/kathleencollinsauthor

If you’re a US resident and want a chance to win Book three you can enter the goodreads giveaway here

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26096617-blood-slave

What you’ve been waiting for

I picked two winners using Random.org which picked #1 and #5 Congratulations Sarah L and Laura Denham!!! please email me at kdcollinsauthor at gmail.com and put Contest winner in the Subject line.  Let me know if you want a beta copy which I can get to you next week or if you want to wait for a final copy which will be a couple of weeks before the official release.

As for everyone else….I have a present for you too. Blood Slave is now available for preorder!

Nook: http://bit.ly/1gD1TiK

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1LbAOjp

Please know that Blood Slave will be available in print on release day but there is no pre-order option for the print version. I promise it’s coming though. :)

Oh and thank you so much for all the kind words in the comments to the previous post. You guys are the reason I do this!

And so it begins…..

All right everyone, I promised lots of fun leading up to the book release (which is Aug. 25 by the way) and we’re going to start with giving you a chance to read Blood Slave before anyone else. I’m even going to let you pick if you want an ARC to get it even faster or if you want to wait a few weeks and get the final version. Remember, the ARC won’t have the final edits so there may be some errors and content may get added before the final release. As a reminder here’s the cover and the blurb and all you have to do to win is leave me a comment below. Spread the word, the more who enter, the more copies I’ll give away.

Can she find a killer in a town where the basest desires are allowed to run free?

There are zombies in the Dead Zone and Juliana Norris is sent to take care of the problem. And for there to be zombies, there had to be bodies. When vampires are found to be the culprits, Juliana is sent undercover in the red light district of Kansas City. Lying to her mate, Thomas Kendrick, isn’t something she wants to do, but she’s in another vampire’s territory and Thomas would not be pleased. Besides, she’s more than capable of doing the job and she needs to prove it to everyone. Most of all herself.

Charles Morgan is in control of the Kansas City area, making a rich living off his various enterprises. Juliana goes undercover at the strip club Lust and gets sucked into his dark, decadent world. More victims turn up and the Agency is positive they’ve got their man, but Juliana is not so sure. When the Agency refuses to listen, she reluctantly turns to Thomas for help. He intervenes but finds Juliana unaware of the danger she is in and discovers she may just be too deep for him to save.

The Making of Michael Bishop is now Free!!

If you haven’t had the opportunity to pick up Michael’s origin story yet, now’s your chance to get it for free. It’s also a great way to introduce people to the Realm Walker universe so tell your friends.

Kindle: http://amzn.to/1MS0COP

Nook: http://bit.ly/1JZOPAa

Stay Tuned

Hello my lovelies,

I have not been here because I’ve been busy writing. That is good, yes? Anyway, I have many things planned in the next month or so to prepare for the release of Book Three. (I do not have an exact release date yet as I need to talk to my editor but I will update you once I do.) I’ve got free short stories, a chance to read Blood Slave before it releases,  a chance to beta read future projects and free signed books coming your way. Just stay tuned. I promise it will be worth the wait. :)

Thank you

You all have been incredibly understanding and completely awesome both here on my blog, on facebook, and even in my email. I love my readers and you will be thrilled to know that I am working on getting you the book as soon as possible. And for being such awesome people, how about a little peek? Remember this is still in working mode so you’ll have to forgive any minor errors. And everything is subject to change until the book comes out. Enjoy!

****

Juliana Norris laid in the dirt, tracking the necromancer through the scope of her rifle as rocks dug into her belly. She shifted her weight for the hundredth time in an effort to get comfortable. The old man paced the clearing below. His oversized suit hanging on his thin frame made him look emaciated. Tattered cuffs spoke to many long nights spent in the cemeteries with the dead. But tonight they weren���t in a graveyard; they were in the Dead Zone.

The Dead Zone was the result of an accident at a germ research facility that some dumbass politicians decided should be relocated to America���s heartland about a decade ago. Less than five years after they opened their doors, the outbreak occurred. A quick response from the government kept the epidemic from becoming global, but every human or animal within fifty miles succumbed to the plague. A few stragglers had begun to move back into the area in recent years and with them had come rumors of zombies rising in the night.

Every now and then, the Agency or the locals would send a group out to lay the zombies to rest. Lately, the rumors had become rampant again so here she was, playing guard duty to a necromancer. She���d tried to convince her boss it was a waste of time and resources to send the death wrangler. She could have just put them to sleep her way. One quick shot to the head and the zombies would cease to be a problem. Even the undead needed a brain to function.

As soon as the necromancer finished preparing, he would cast a spell to summon all the undead in the area. The zombies would come straight to them and they wouldn���t have to hunt them down. She supposed that was one bonus of the necromancer being here at least. Once they���d gathered, he���d perform one incantation and lay them all to rest at once. That was the plan anyway. Unfortunately, things so very seldom went according to plan. That���s why she was here.

The badly sung chorus of a song about a man with a big gun came over her earpiece and she shook her head as she smiled. Correction, that���s why she and Nathaniel were here. Nathaniel West���werewolf, Realm Walker, and general pain in her ass���was singing the song in a voice low enough it was barely audible.

���Cute,��� she said and found him in the scope of her rifle.

He laid on the hill across from her in much the same position, his own rifle scanning the area in a mirror to hers. The scope found her and he raised a hand in a half-hearted wave. ���It���s fitting,��� he said with a chuckle.

As the sun disappeared behind the horizon, flashes of light near Juliana���s position caught her attention. She turned on her gift so she could see the signature of anything creeping around. Several blobs of chartreuse and pink lit her vision. Pixies. She hated pixies.

She glanced at the scene below to gage the death wrangler���s readiness. The magic was rising in the circle he drawn, but it hadn���t built to the strength it needed to be yet. One of the pink blobs flitted closer. Juliana narrowed her eyes and watched it until it hovered beside her rifle.

���You bite me, you little shit, and you���re going to regret it.���

A tinkling laugh with an undercurrent of mania filled the air. The pixie darted forward and sharp pain radiated from the back of Juliana���s hand. A tiny, perfectly formed bite mark appeared on her skin. Damn pixie. The laughter gave way to high-pitched shrieks as she snatched it out of the air. Juliana didn���t speak pixie, but she had a feeling it was something along the lines of, ���How dare you? Unhand me at once.���

Pixies had a bad habit of biting people and going invisible. You couldn���t punish something you couldn���t find. They could hide from sight all they wanted, but they couldn���t hide their signatures. Maybe since she���d caught this one, the rest of the cursed creatures would leave her in peace.

Chanting rose from below as the necromancer began to call the undead. ���Get lost, pixie,��� she said and opened her hand to release it. It hovered in front of her a moment more, still shrieking and then darted off into the growing darkness. She looked through her scope to find the clearing below now bathed in a sheen of red magic. Juliana opted to keep her gift up rather than switching to the night scope. After a few minutes, gray signatures appeared at the edge of her vision, moving across the fields to the necromancer.

There weren���t many of them and they were tightly grouped together which made keeping them in sight easier. She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to ensure herself none of them were creeping up behind her. Nathaniel would warn her if they were. Keeping her scope trained on the corpses as they shuffled along, she occasionally glanced in her partner���s direction to make sure his back was safe. There were six signatures all together. No seven. A small signature hovered close to the ground. What was that? A baby? That would make the night perfect. A baby zombie. Why did she always pull the shit assignments?

���They got a freaking dog with them,��� Nathaniel���s voice hummed over her earpiece. ���I think it���s a Pomeranian.���

She huffed out a laugh in relief. A dog, not a baby. She���d seen weirder things than a zombie Pomeranian she supposed. Not that she could think of anything off the top of her head, but she was sure there was something. The figures shuffled along, arms in front of them looking more like some Hollywood throwback than any natural zombie she���d ever seen. ���Gods, could they get any slower?���

���Remember, they���re all science. No magic.���

Juliana tilted her head from side to side in an effort to stretch her neck muscles. The scientists that worked in the research facility had been, among other things, trying to recreate the Altered with pure science. The result was vampires that caught fire in the sun and zombies that shuffled along. If they���d bothered to consult any actual Altered, they could have learned that you can���t duplicate magic with science. It simply couldn���t be done, as the abominations below her demonstrated.

���How���s our wrangler holding up?��� she asked. His signature told her little of how the man was faring.

���Stone cold and chanting.���

Her attention shifted back to the zombies and their pet. They stopped at the edge of the circle and twisted their heads jerkily from side to side as if examining the air in front of them. Cold fingers of unease ran up Juliana���s spine and she frowned. They shouldn���t have been able to detect the circle.

I’m still here

I sat on a pew with my mother today and watched her say goodbye to her best friend who died unexpectedly this past week. That probably wasn’t how you were expecting this post to start, nor was it how I intended to start it. But it kind of sums up how the last year has gone for me and my family. The last six months have been particularly rough.

Just lots of stuff going on that was both physically and emotionally draining. As such, I took a step back. I stepped away from social media for the most part, I stepped away from the computer all together some days and focused on me and my family. I’m not going to apologize for that. What I am going to apologize for is not letting you all in on what was going on. The reading and writing community is incredibly supportive and I should have remembered that. I’m also going to apologize because this has delayed the release of book three, not only past when I wanted it out but also past when I said it was going to be out.

I could give you all a book the end of this month but it wouldn’t be a book I was proud of. I want to give you my best and that just hasn’t been possible the last few months.

I can tell you that I am getting back on my feet. I can promise you that I am working on making the book the very best I can give you and putting the heart into it that is currently missing from it. I also promise that once I have a firm release date for you I will post it here and on facebook.

I know that you are all disappointed to hear this but I assure you, my disappointment in my inability to deliver what I intended when I intended to do it is far worse. You all know how important my readers are to me and how much I love to hear from you. I hope you stick around for a few more months and let me give you something awesome. It’ll be worth it.

Reviews!

I’m on a blog tour this month with the Making of Michael Bishop and have already gotten a couple of great reviews. I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t share them with you.

 

http://www.mythicalbooks.blogspot.ro/2014/10/the-making-of-michael-bishop-realm.html

http://magluvsya03.wordpress.com/2014/10/04/the-making-of-michael-bishop-blog-tour/

Michael Bishop is on the Nook

Okay…well, not Michael himself but The Making of Michael Bishop is now available on the Nook for 99 cents.

Buy it Now