Cole McCade's Blog, page 6

ZERO DAY EXPLOIT Preview Teaser: Please Share!

ZERO DAY EXPLOIT (NOUN) :

1. An attack that penetrates a previously unknown vulnerability in a computer or system.

2. The kind of infuriating, manipulative man who gets under your skin and refuses to get out. And now, a one-night stand may turn out to be the biggest mistake of Zoraya Blackwell's career.

PREVIEW

She tried to speak—but her tongue didn’t want to move, thick and heavy in her aching, so very heated mouth. He was so close. Close enough that she could pick out every fine grain of dark stubble, rough as sandpaper, along the incisively sharp lines of his cheeks and jaw; close enough that his long lashes mingled with hers. Those lashes swept down as his gaze gravitated to her lips. Every breath rang too loud between them, a pull and sigh that drew on her until she could feel nothing but the tingling in her fingertips and the glimmering fire in the pit of her stomach and the warmth rising off him like heat-shimmer waves on asphalt.

"Don’t you?" he repeated softly, and she watched every supple twist of his lips as they formed around the words. It would be so easy to just…lean closer and…

No. She jerked back with a sharp gasp, pressing a hand over the tightness in her chest and staring at him. She couldn’t do this. Not with him. He was a liar, and she couldn’t let herself get sucked into his magnetism again.

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ZERO DAY EXPLOIT | Coming Soon | ColeMcCade.com

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Image Plus Excerpt (looks like the opening excerpt, but with a smaller image):

She tried to speak—but her tongue didn’t want to move, thick and heavy in her aching, so very heated mouth. He was so close. Close enough that she could pick out every fine grain of dark stubble, rough as sandpaper, along the incisively sharp lines of his cheeks and jaw; close enough that his long lashes mingled with hers. Those lashes swept down as his gaze gravitated to her lips. Every breath rang too loud between them, a pull and sigh that drew on her until she could feel nothing but the tingling in her fingertips and the glimmering fire in the pit of her stomach and the warmth rising off him like heat-shimmer waves on asphalt.

"Don’t you?" he repeated softly, and she watched every supple twist of his lips as they formed around the words. It would be so easy to just…lean closer and…

No. She jerked back with a sharp gasp, pressing a hand over the tightness in her chest and staring at him. She couldn’t do this. Not with him. He was a liar, and she couldn’t let herself get sucked into his magnetism again.

ZERO DAY EXPLOIT | Coming Soon | ColeMcCade.com

Cover Reveal: WINTER RAIN

Remember when I posted about the amazing SUMMER RAIN anthology for RAINN.org, and all the wonderful, talented authors involved? Look what showed up in my inbox today:

 

I am humbled to be in such awesome company with such outstanding authors.

…and I may have squealed like a schoolgirl to see my name on the cover. It…um…was a manly schoolgirl squeal. Yes. The kind of squeal only a very buff schoolgirl could manage.

Winter Rain is coming November 2014. More details when they're available!

SUMMER RAIN Charity Romance Anthology, Benefiting RAINN.org

UPDATE from the lovely Suzi Wolf: If you buy through smile.amazon.com before Sunday, June 15th, apparently Amazon will donate an extra $5 to the charity of your choice. So use that link before purchasing.

Guess what dropped yesterday?

What happens when love gets caught in the rain?

In this romance anthology, RITA-Award winning author Molly O’Keefe shows us the power of a city thunderstorm from the top of a skyscraper, while Amy Jo Cousins soaks us in a rain in Spain. New York Times bestselling author Ruthie Knox’s heroine is devastated by a winter storm, while a summer thunderstorm grants Alexandra Haughton’s hero and heroine a second chance at love. Rain sparks self-awareness in the robot in Charlotte Stein’s story and allows Mary Ann Rivers’s heroine to fall in love with her hero and her own art. Rain causes romance between the college students in Audra North’s and Shari Slade’s stories, while romance causes rain in Cecilia Tan’s myth-inspired tale of a sacrifice to a demi-god. Nine romance novelettes, edited by Sarah Frantz.

All proceeds from the volume will be donated to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (www.rainn.org), the largest anti-sexual violence organization in the United States.

This is a book you need to pick up, y'all. Not just because it features several amazing authors, including Audra North (whom I adore), but because this is an important issue, and RAINN is an amazing organization that does so much to help victims of abuse and violence. I've already picked up my copy, and even though I haven't read it yet, it was worth every penny for that alone. (Okay, I'm a filthy liar. I read part of it, and so far it's a fascinating mix of stories and styles from some very talented authors.) Buy links:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KUZCWUG

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00KUZCWUG

Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/summer-rain-ruthie-knox/1119698126?ean=2940149185948

Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/summer-rain-7

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/summer-rain/id885030898?mt=11

And that cover is absolutely gorgeous. I seriously keep going back to look at it. It's like a sigh painted in watercolor shades.

P.S. Keep an eye out for the second in the series, Winter Rain, coming later this year. Guess who's contributing a story? Guess who should go finish proofreading that story and send it to Audra before she kills him?

P.P.S. Really sorry I haven't been around lately, you guys. When I have a lot to get done, I have to go fully dark on socializing–email, Twitter, Facebook, everything. MY CAVE IS A BLACK AND SILENT PLACE. Okay, well, it's not; it's usually pretty loud with all the dubstep and electronica and grindcore on top of the keyboard-breaking typing (the M key's going now, oy), but you get the idea. It doesn't mean I love y'all any less; it means I love y'all too damned much, because if I let myself get sucked in even once I'll spend weeks making excuses for why I can totally start on this project tomorrow, because right now there're Twitter shenanigans! And by tomorrow I mean tomorrow-tomorrow, not actually tomorrow, and…you get the idea. Shenanigans are wonderful for my mood, but terrible for my productivity.

P.P.P.S. Crap, I missed May's GLABN, didn't I? Damn it. I might end up retiring it anyway and just doing spontaneous random contests when the mood strikes me. We'll see.

P.P.P.P.S. These are a lot of postscripts. Post-post-post-postscripts?

P.P.P.P.P.S. Last one, promise.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. I'm still a filthy liar.

#GiveLoveABadName for 04.25.14

There are few things more euphoric than the feeling of typing "The End" on the last page of a manuscript you've been working on for months, after waiting nearly a year to even sign it with a publisher. It's the strangest mix of emotions; the book's really only just begun, as it starts on its path through the editorial cycle in preparation for publication.

But there's a sense of closure nonetheless, and it creates a feeling of loss. An ache, because it's time to let go and give these characters over into the hands of someone else who can make them better; who can bring out the finer nuances in their story. Bittersweet nostalgia, as if every scene was a memory shared with a loved one now lost. Numbness, as you try to separate your own emotions from the ones you've captured on the page and remind yourself that those little heartbreaks and greater joys weren't actually yours. Relief, that you're no longer trying to wring blood from a stone with those last few words after exhausting, grueling weeks of writing with every waking moment, loving it with a sort of masochistic pain and yet dreaming longingly of just fifteen more minutes of sleep.

…and then, of course, there's the crazed twenty minutes of jumping up and down and howling fit to spook the neighbors. And the cat. This happened. Tybalt is not happy at all.

But I am. I still need to spend the next few days proofreading and self-editing a bit more, but my first book is about to go off to my editor, and I'm…ecstatic. Nervous. Anticipating. Dreading.

And desperately sick of avoiding Twitter just because I had to be a hardarse about self-discipline.

Good thing it's time for #GiveLoveABadName, then, isn't it? And after working so hard to get every word just right and not write something that will end up featured in my own contest, I need to read something really, really bad.

If you're unfamiliar with the rules, you can find them . Tweet me @ColeMcCade under the hashtag, or post horrible, horrible things to my Facebook to be immortalized forever. Today I'm giving away a massive (no–hush–save it for the contest) prize pack of 20 of Entangled Publishing's latest releases across nearly every line. Well, actually more than that, since one of these is a trilogy set:

Contest is open until 8PM Central time tonight. Let's start a weekend of celebration off right – with wine, chocolate, and the most terrible porn we can possibly imagine.

#GiveLoveABadName for March 28, 2014

All right, here we go – the first try at doing this monthly instead of weekly, with blog entries. You can leave your entry(ies) in a comment to this post, pop over to Facebook, or use the hashtag and tweet to @ColeMcCade until 8pm CT tonight.

This month's prize is a $100 Amazon or B&N gift card (your choice).

Confused?  Short version? I give away prizes for sending in your original descriptions of the things in romance novels that make you snort, giggle, roll your eyes, or recoil in horror. Like the lush, loving details of the hairy mole nestled at the base of his rearing manhood. (Rearing? Seriously? Is it pawing at the air, too?) Or maybe how her nipples stood out against her shirt like two pushpins. Because everyone wants to imagine pointy things stabbed into their areolae, right?

Changes to #GiveLoveABadName

You know how I have this thing with blogging? Where I bloody well hate it unless I have something to say? Well, it's coming back to bite me in the arse, because I really should have talked about this weeks ago.  (also known as GLABN, which sounds like an STD) is undergoing some changes, and I should really talk about what those changes are.

If you hang out with me on Twitter, you probably know that for a while I was hosting a weekly contest on Twitter and Facebook, in which for some reason related to madness or toxoplasmosis, I was actually rewarding people for sending me godawful things about droopy octogenarian sex and getting intimate with our new robot overlords. And then the contest rather shriveled up and wilted. Or, more accurately, I stopped hosting it, amid various discussions on Twitter with feedback from several lovely people about how to make it better, and more accessible. So this is how things turned out:

1. will now take place once a month instead of once a week, on the last Friday of each month. (Which makes the first one tomorrow. So much advance warning, I know.)

2. Instead of 5pm-6pm CT, the contest will be open from 8am-8pm CT.

3. There will now be three ways to enter, instead of two. Instead of just Twitter and Facebook, you can now enter by Twitter, Facebook, or blog comment.

4. Prizes will be larger to compensate for only one contest per month. $100 gift cards, etc. or enormous book prize packs, or whatever other swag I come up with. I'll still be looking for opportunities to use the prizes to promote other Entangled authors and/or benefit charities when I can (for instance, Amazon gift cards can be tied in to Amazon's Smile charity program), so if you have any suggestions for that, they're welcome.

5. Because the prizes will be larger, no more of the "crap, I can't make up my mind, everybody wins! You're all winnneeeeeers!" Oprah shite. I'll have to pick just one winner.

6. Winners will be chosen the day after the contest closes (Saturday). Because at 8pm on a Friday, I am not making cogent decisions regarding badporn. Especially when I've probably broken out the caramel apple vodka by then, and am likely on my way out the door. Because weekends are for shenanigans, and I do so love my shenanigans.

There are several reasons for this, and because I seem to have a thing with lists, well, let's have a peek, shall we?

1. The weekly contest was just getting to be too much of a drain, both on me and on the entrants. Too much pressure to perform on schedule. Making the contest monthly takes off the pressure and makes it more of a fun event for everyone.

2. The 5-6pm CT window was ideal for me, but not so great for everyone who might want to participate, especially when they were left feeling on the spot to come up with something right then and there before the hour was up, with little advance warning. A longer all-day window gives people more time to work over their entries and come back to it when they have time.

3. Some people have friends and family on their Twitter and FB accounts, and don't want those people to see them posting about the rubbery consistency of some bloke's trouser snake. You can leave posts anonymously or under a false name on the blog, letting you enter without exposing yourself (ahem) to your friends and loved ones.

4. I get a little more time to figure out who I'm going to be playing Dirty Santa to that month, instead of feeling on the spot to pick right now.

So that's it. A new post will be going up tomorrow morning kicking things off (damn you, blog posts, my arch-nemesis), and we'll see how it goes.

Oh, and because I've been meaning to post this over here for posterity: last month I was over at Wonkomance, talking about the pitfalls of trying to live up to someone's expectations of a romance novel hero. And humiliating myself for your enjoyment. "They're Really More Like Guidelines, Anyway (Or – Fuzzy Handcuffs, Chemistry, and How I Put a Date in the Hospital)."

The First Inaugural Muckity-Muck – Or, the First #GiveLoveABadName Contest

I've mentioned on Twitter that I don't blog much. I've said that I don't blog much, right? I don't like blogging. Blogging is the devil. Just saying it out loud sounds like some kind of throat congestion. So in lieu of blogging, I'm going to give you free things. Shiny things. Money things, as long as you make me laugh. Announcing…

THE FIRST TWITTER AND FACEBOOK CONTEST.

Huh. Written in all caps like that, it doesn't even look like English words.

But anyway. It's time to kick this thing off, with the first contest this coming Friday (02.07.14) at 5pm Central (US) Time. You can , but the general gist is that for one hour, you get to bombard me with your worst (original) euphemisms for sex, love, and romance. Things you never want to see in a romance novel. Things that would make you giggle until you asphyxiate. Possibly even ways of describing asphyxiation. (You know some of you are into that. Don't even pretend you're not.) C'mon. Tell me how his bumpy, wet tongue felt like the arm of a particularly slimy starfish. Mm-mm good.

And in exchange, I give you the shinies.

FIRST PRIZE: Your choice of a $25 Amazon, B&N, or Kobo gift card.

Because sooner or later, everybody asks why.

Dammit. Now people are looking at me. Guess I gotta blog.

So I'm already getting about the response I expected, ranging somewhere between "Holy shite, there's a cock in the henhouse, is he lost?" to "holy SHITE there's a guy who writes romance novels! That's awesome!" to the occasional "…a guy? Writing romance novels? Oh god, this is going to suck. Probably in the most vulgar terms possible."

But what I get more than anything, and have been getting long before I poked my head into the social media sphere and its overall welcoming atmosphere, is one basic question:

Why? As a red-blooded American male of generally heterosexual leanings, why would I write romance novels geared toward a primarily female audience?

So before you really ask me that, I want you to go watch this (warning: NSFW):

Watched it? Yeah? Good.

Now go hug a gorram puppy.

I'm not even going to get into the pure BS that comes with using gay/f*g etc. as an insult, like throwing that around is supposed to instantly shame me and make me question my manhood. That's a whole other issue for a whole other day. (But I'm going to say this once: cut the dudebro shite and stop using "gay" as an insult. What are you, three?) But if you want my why, Burr's got it pretty much covered. I could try to be suave and trot out something about wanting to understand women more. I'd sound disingenuous. Even more, I'd sound like an egotistical arsehole, because most guys who try to pull off even half the things romance heroes do end up looking like awkward idiots. If we're lucky, it comes across as adorable. If we're not so lucky, you'll stop laughing at us in a year or two. Or ten.

But no matter what I say, really what it boils down to is this: I write romance novels because I like reading romance novels, and I'm not particularly fond of letting people tell me what I can or cannot do just because of what's in my jockeys.

It's really as simple as that. Yet I've been getting incredulous responses from friends, family, and crit partners since I started writing, ranging from "Dude. Romance novels?" to "Dude. Romance novels!" Like I'm the first. I'm not, and I won't be the last. Tons of men write romance novels, even if many use female pen names. But even more men read romance–and the question isn't why we do.

The question is why we don't. 

The answer?

Because if we dare to like something that isn't dripping with enough testosterone to trigger 'roid rage and impregnate every woman in a fifty-mile radius just by smelling it, it's not manly enough. And some idiot's going to yell "What are ya, a F*G?" because that's going to prove his manhood over mine. Yep. You owned me, bro. Or whatever other guys are calling themselves these days.

Like the man said, that's why we drop dead by the time we're 55. Because all those oogy, soft, squishy feelings bottle up inside us and compact into something nasty that plugs us up until we pop, or lose our minds in a fit of repressed angst. Me? I'm not that fond of aneurysms. Nor am I fond of walking around in an emotionally constipated snit, taking it out on everyone around me. What I am fond of is good books that let me feel something. That means I read a lot of everything. Depends on what I want to feel, really. If I want to feel a profound appreciation of the human condition and the philosophy of mankind? I read science fiction. If I want to feel breathlessly enchanted, I read fantasy. If I want to ponder deep and pretentious things, I read historical fiction. If I want to feel like a badarse, I read…okay, more science fiction. And good mystery novels. And paranormals. And if I just want All the Feels crammed into a single novel, pretty much anything YA will do.

And if I want to smile like a damned idiot and hunch into my shoulders gripping the pages hoping Jack and Jill make up after their latest fight because I just need them to fall in love? I grab a good romance novel. And I hug a puppy. (All right, kitten. I'm a cat person.) And I drink my coffee with extra sugar. And whatever the hell else I feel like doing, because judging people based on gender roles is so last century. And it's just boring.

Every guy has his soft spot. He might not be willing to publicly show it because the dudebros might get a whiff of those sparkly little pheromones and explode, but he's got it. Mine is writing romance novels. Never know, your guy's soft spot might just be reading them. When you're sleeping at night, he's got Maya Banks cracked open under the covers, reading voraciously and letting out all those things he bottles up. Look at it as self-preservation, smile, and when he's not looking, sneak a few more onto his shelf.

Save a life. Buy a man a romance novel.

And if you have to, look the other way while he reads it.

"What's auspicious? What day is it?"

Because every post needs a quote from a drunken member of the Alliance, "This is an auspicious day." I'm excited to announce that I've recently sold my contemporary romance to the Entangled Indulgence line. Watch this space for more updates, including giveaways, cover reveals, and a look at writing romance from the perspective of a guy who happens to shamelessly enjoy reading romance novels.

Or sign up for the newsletter (it's just over there to your right) to get announcements delivered right to your inbox. Because that's what email is for. It's like a tiny valet, bringing you shiny things.