UK Copies!

Look what just came in the mail!!! UK copies of My Soul To Take! And I have to say, I really love this edition of the book.


I love how the color scheme matches the US covers, but the image is completely different. I think that both versions (the US and the UK) capture different elements of the feel of the book, and I could not be more pleased. Also, I love that the UK versions show the Netherworld fog that surrounds everything when Kaylee's crossing over. Love!

And...look what's in the back of the UK version!



I wrote the Netherworld survival guide a few months ago and was thrilled when Mira Ink asked if they could print it in the back of the books. It'll be up on my website soon (we're working on the graphics) but for now, it's exclusive to the UK copies of the books. The only downside is that you won't actually be introduced to Alec (the character whose journal the pages are taken from) until the third book (My Soul To Keep).

And, the UK version has a sneak peek at the first two chapters of My Soul To Save, which will be out in the UK in February.

-----

Also, if you missed it yesterday, here are the contests I currently have going on, one of which ends tomorrow!

• New Release contest - post My Soul To Steal trailer and release info and enter to win your choice of a complete signed Rachel Vincent series
• New Year's contest - tell me what 2010 accomplishment you're proud of and enter to win your choice of Rogue (AU version) or an ARC of My Soul To Steal.

Soul Screamers link-up

Today I have a ton of work to do, so I offer up some yummy link salad.

Contests:

• New Release contest - post My Soul To Steal trailer and release info and enter to win your choice of a complete signed Rachel Vincent series
• New Year's contest - tell me what 2010 accomplishment you're proud of and enter to win your choice of Rogue (AU version) or an ARC of My Soul To Steal.

Guest blogs:

• I blogged about Kaylee and Sabine here
• I blogged about "Reaper" here

And, evidently there's a My Soul To Steal widget! Who knew! Feel free to share!

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New Release contest!

I hope everyone had a great holiday! I took a couple of days off for Christmas, though I worked in the car on the way to and from my dad's house in Dallas. At least, until I got car sick and my laptop battery died. Fortunately, those seemed to happen at about the same time. ;)

For Christmas this year, Santa brought both an Xbox Kinect and the Move accessories and software for our PS3. Evidently the goal is to get me up and moving before my lower half becomes molded into the shape of my office chair. And I love both systems!

The good news? I am currently undefeated on both the virtual soccer field and the gladiator ring. The bad news? I seem to have damaged my right rotator cuff by viciously stabbing and jump-attacking #1 in the Colosseum. Good thing I have this manuscript to polish while I'm recovering from my video game injury. ;)

Aside from that, do you know what today is? Well, it might be the official shelf date for My Soul To Steal. It's one of the dates, anyway. And if you haven't been able to find it on the shelf yet, you should be able to by Jan 1, in the US, Canada, and Australia.

To celebrate, how 'bout a contest?

Up for grabs: Winner's choice of

• The complete Soul Screamers series to date + a copy of the Kiss Me Deadly antho, containing the "Fearless" short story. All signed and personalized.

Or...

• The complete Shifters series, American editions. All signed and personalized.

How you can enter:

On or before Jan 4th, 2010, post the My Soul To Steal trailer on your blog or Facebook page, along with the cover blurb, a release announcement, and a link to at least one site where a copy can be purchased legally. Then come back here and leave me a link to where you posted in the comments.

The code for the trailer and the official cover blurb are below. Interested? Start posting!

Official blurb:

YOU WANT MY SOUL AND MY BOYFRIEND?

Trying to work things out with
Nash—her maybe boyfriend—is hard enough for Kaylee Cavanaugh. She can’t just
pretend nothing happened. But “complicated” doesn’t even begin to describe their
relationship when his ex-girlfriend transfers to their school, determined to
take Nash back.

See, Sabine isn’t just an ordinary girl. She’s a mara,
the living personification of a nightmare. She can read people’s fears—and craft
them into nightmares while her victims sleep. Feeding from human fear is how she
survives.

And Sabine isn’t above scaring Kaylee and the entire school to
death to get whatever—and whoever—she wants.

I DON'T THINK SO.

Gingerbread House 2010

[Yesterday at the Deadline Dames site, I posted my year-end list of accomplishments and invited readers to share theirs in the comments to enter my end-of-year reader's-choice giveaway!]

With a deadline, a new release, and the holidays, I'm super-busy this month, but last night #1 and I made time to assemble and decorate our annual Christmas gingerbread house. He gets credit for the design and most of the construction. He's getting really good at it.

Since we were short on time, we went with a simple, classic looking design. It's Santa's House! (Our idea of it, anyway...)


As you can see, this year he used wooden supports to keep the pieces in place while the frosting cement dried. Smart, huh?

I make and roll the gingerbread, make the frosting, and help decorate. This year's house has a large front picture window made of crushed cherry Jolly Ranchers baked into the house. The left side has three more windows, two made of apple Jolly Ranchers, and one more of cherry. Festive, huh?

The ground of this year's house is Rice Crispy treat, molded directly onto the custom base while it was still warm.



This year we used gumdrops for bushes, peppermints for roof tiles, and pull-apart Twizzlers and red hots to line the roof.




Here you can see how transparent the windows are. That's one of my favorite parts. There's also a green licorice belt walkway lined in old-fashioned peppermints, a white-fudge pretzel fence, and candy-cane gates.





We shook powdered sugar all over for snow, and #1 carefully made frosting icicles hanging from the roof.



Here, from the side, you can see the actual North Pole (a giant candy-cane stick) and the side windows.

So, what do you think? What are your holiday traditions?

Release day chaos.

Okay, I'm officially confused. I cave to the mystery that is book release dates. Do you hear me, publishing world?! I give!

The official release date for My Soul To Steal is January 1. Usually books get shelved early in a lot of places, which is what I expected. Except that according to Chapters (Canada), Amazon and Barnes & Noble, today is the official shelf date for MSTSteal. Which would be awesome, except that Amazon says it is ALREADY OUT OF STOCK! How is that possible?

To further complicate things, Borders, and Books-A-Million list it as a December 28th release and still have it up for pre-order. As does The Book Depository (international shipping) and Mills and Boon Australia, which lists it as a Jan 1 release.

So, to make this long story a little shorter: Sorry, but I don't know when My Soul To Steal will be available. Maybe today. Maybe Dec 28th. Maybe Jan 1. Your only sure bet for today is Barnes & Noble in the US and Chapters (Indigo) in Canada.

And...

To add just a teeny bit more to the confusion, I've just discovered that Mills and Boon (Australia) is releasing Prey in AU with an altered version of the US/Canadian cover from Alpha. I have no idea what they're planning to do with the Shift and Alpha covers down under, but I can't wait to see them!

MSTSteal Trailer!

The good news: I finished the new adult manuscript early on Thursday and took a long weekend off. Completely offline.

The bad news: things piled up in my absence and I still have to rewrite this new manuscript before I can turn it in. So...I'll be busy over the next week or so, in addition to the holidays.

But...I really meant to post this earlier, but with everything going on, I forgot. And since the official shelf date of My Soul To Steal is TOMORROW (yeah, how did I miss that?!?), without further ado, I give you the My Soul To Steal trailer:




You can also see it in HD on my website or at YouTube.

Feel free to re-post (in fact, I'd love that!) and maybe mention that tomorrow's the shelf date (as opposed to the official release on Jan 1), just in time for Christmas!

Okay, back to the grindstone. Whatever that means. ;)

So...close...!

I worked all day yesterday and added 5,000 words to the new adult manuscript, which pushed the novel past the 100,000 word mark--and busted my wordcount progress bar wide open. That means the novel's done, right? What else could a busted wordcount meter mean?

Sigh. All that broken bit of html means is that the book will be a little longer than I'd intended. But I'm almost there. In fact, I got up extra early to finish the book, which I need to do before noon, because this afternoon is dedicated to finding something shiny/flattering/awesome to wear to #1's office holiday party tonight. (Yes, that IS a half-day exercise in futility.) Because evidently the official writer's uniform (PJs, jeans & tee, or well-worn sweats) won't cut it when there will be other real, live people present.

To reward myself for an awesome, productive day of writing, I watched the season finale of The Walking Dead with #1 last night (it was a little anti-climactic--the CDC guy wasn't as evil as I wanted him to be) and this morning, I feel like I could be a cast member. Of the undead variety. Pretty sure my skin is sagging and greenish this morning from exhaustion.

But...work goes on. You'll know I've finished the book when you hear that scream of relief joy echoing across the planet later today.

Wish me luck!

Live chat today!

Today I'm REALLY hoping to write the final fight scene in this new adult book, leaving only the final wrap-it-up chapter for tomorrow.

96,034 / 100,000
(96.03%)

***

In other news, the My Soul To Steal trailer is finished!!! It should go up online very soon, and I think it's gorgeous! Number 1 has outdone himself, and I can't wait to show it off. ;)

***

Also, though, I'm going to be dropping in on the Harlequin Community Open House 2010 post party. I'll be in the HQN/Mira/Luna post party room (my adult books are published through Mira) with JT Ellison, Lindsay McKenna, Nicola Cornick, and Robin D. Owens. And rumor has it there will be a couple of prizes given out.

The post party is a drop-in event going on all day today until 7:00 pm Eastern, in an attempt to accomodate people in various timezones.

Also, from 7-8 pm eastern, I'll be doing a live chat with Harlequin Teen & Kimani TRU authors Artist Arthur and Mara Purnhagen. We'll be chatting with readers and answering questions about our YA series, and I KNOW there will be prizes at this event, because I donated a copy of My Soul To Steal.

You have to be a member of eHarlequin to attend either event, but joining is easy and I'd love to see you there. And as a bonus incentive, I'm considering announcing the name of my adult series and the title of the first book in the adult post party. But only if someone actually shows up. ;)

Facebook ARC contest today!

I'm within 10,000 words (less than 3 days' work) of finishing the new adult novel, so I'm going to be scarce online for the next few days while I push this thing through to the end.

Crunch time, you know.

But...

On Saturday, I gave away 10 ARCs of My Soul To Steal on Twitter with a trivia contest. It went really well. Since the contest was live, I got the shipping information instantly and mailed all the prizes THAT DAY. So today I'm going to repeat that with 3 of my remaining 6 ARCs on Facebook.

The three trivia questions will be asked one at a time, two hours apart, and the first correct response wins. So have your Soul Screamers books/novellas ready. I don't care how you get the answers (look it up, Google, ask a friend, make a wish) but if Saturday's trivia is any indication, you'll have to be pretty fast.

Now, FYI, the questions will be asked at the following times (in San Antonio, where I live), spread out in an attempt to include more people:

Q1: 2:00 pm Central (Convert to your time zone by entering your city here.)
Q2: 4:00 pm Central (Convert to your time zone by entering your city here.)
Q3: 6:00 pm Central (Convert to your time zone by entering your city here.)

I will ship internationally and anyone can win, except for those who've already won a copy or read a digital copy.

Where can you go to play the trivia game? My facebook page.

You do not not have to be a blog/Twitter follower and I'm not sure if you have to "like" the Facebook page to comment, but yes, you DO have to be a member of Facebook to play. Sorry. I can't help that. Twitter and Facebook are where I get the most traffic/have the most followers, so the first giveaways are on those venues. But I will still have 3 more ARCs to giveaway elsewhere tomorrow, so stay tuned if you can't access the Facebook contest.

Questions? You have approx. 3 hours to ask me... ;)

Winners!

Okay, the random number generator has chosen winners for both ARC contests that closed on Wednesday, and the winners have been notified via email. But here they are, just in case:

The winners of the MSTSteal ARC giveaway are:

Stephanie M.
Kellye F.
Natasha R.

And the winner of the "Reaper" trivia ARC giveaway is:

Clarisse

Congratulations to the winners, and thanks so much to all who entered!

If you didn't win, don't worry. I'll probably be giving away some more finished copies in the next couple of weeks, leading up to the release. And My Soul To Steal is already up for pre-order just about everywhere!

In other news...my December is totally made of crazy this year. It's like life has decided I don't have enough balls to juggle already, so it tossed on a few more. So here I stand, feet spread for balance, gamely tossing balls back up in the air, trying to watch everything all at once, knowing I'm going to drop something and dreading the moment it smashes on the ground.

Chief among those (at least, at this point) is finishing the rough draft of my new adult novel. Regarding plot, I'm almost done. There's nothing left but the big reveal (in the middle of that now, and boy is it a doozy), the big fight scene, and the denouement (the final clarification or resolution of a plot ). Then the first draft will be done. But it will gain words on the rewrites, when I add the bits of worldbuilding that still need to be blended in and that one scene I've put off writing for a month.

Right now, I'm at the point in the big reveal where Big Things are being revealed (not just explained) to one (baaaaad) character by one of the viewpoint characters, and I'm not really sure in what order the details should come. So for now, I'm just throwing them in there and hoping I'll have the clarity to sort it all out later. That's sometimes how the first draft goes.

So far, here's where it stands.

85,497 / 100,000
(85.5%)

Yesterday was insane (rush, rush, rush!) so I only made half my wordcount. Must do much better than that today. Wish me luck!

One more time!

[This contest is now closed. The winner will be announced shortly.]

First, today's the last day to enter to win one of three ARCs of My Soul To Steal. I'll be mailing out the prizes (and everything else I still owe other people) at the end of this week, so don't forget to check back in tomorrow to see if you've won. Though I'll also be emailing the winners privately.

Also, today's my day to blog at the Deadline Dames and I'll be posting a short excerpt from My Soul To Steal, so skip on over there to check that out. (And while you're there, wish Dame Jackie a Happy 40th Birthday!!!)

Also at the Dames site, I'll be announcing the winner of the MSTSteal giveaway I hosted there two weeks ago.

But up for today...another ARC giveaway! This one is a one-day-only, quick-n-dirty contest, but it does require a little bit of work--you have to fill out the entry form answering one question. The catch? You have to have read "Reaper" to answer the question.

The good news is that "Reaper" is free. Here's a list of the places you can find it in various formats. I'd hoped to have it up in PDF on my site before this giveaway, but #1's been unavailable to load it for me so far (but look for that very soon, if you haven't already read it).

You can enter this contest even if you've entered one of the others, but you may only win one of them. And yes, the giveaway is international, but it ends at 11:59 central tonight! To enter, fill out the short form below!

In case you were wondering.

This is why I write:

I write for the moments in a story that make me catch my breath. Those moments of epiphany or catharsis. The big reveal. A stunning realization. An emotional purge so raw it bleeds, and my heart bleeds with it. I write for the tears and the triumph. I write for the moments that haunt me. For the moments that make me believe.

I write for the scenes that can’t wait to be written. The scenes that keep me awake past all reason and fatigue. I write for the scenes that pour from my fingertips through the keys and onto the screen in a flow of inspiration so pure and fast I get caught up in the current and emerge miles from where I dove in.

I write because I love it, even when I hate it. I write when the words fight me and must be pulled from the muck of exhaustion one at a time, then painstakingly polished and set into place. I write because not writing is no more viable an option than not breathing, and I’m fairly sure the two are linked in me, one fueling the other, their roles alternating as the need arises.

That is why I write. In case you were wondering.

Who wants an ARC (3 winners)

[This contest is now closed. The winners will be announced shortly.]

First of all, Alpha and the entire Shifters series have been nominated for Best Female Cover and Best Series Covers respectively! This is the second year (I believe) that the Shifters series has been nominated, and the competition is pretty fierce! Click the image below will take you to the fine print and a list of prizes that can be won by voting, and it'll also link to the voting ballot.

Spread the word! Vote! Post the graphic!




Also, as I said yesterday, the fine folks at Harlequin Teen found a bunch more ARCs of My Soul To Steal and sent them to me, because we had such a great demand for the one I gave away last month. So here's a second chance! (And yes, the giveaway is open to international entries.)And this time, I'm giving away three of them! To enter fill out the form below...

Still looking for "Reaper?"

[Edit: I'm told there's a free Kindle app for PCs, so those without a Kindle can download Kindle ebooks! Not sure if that helps those overseas or not.]

I don't feel good today, and all I really want to do is lie in bed and watch Pandorum again. Alas, there is work to be done and evidently, if I don't write this book, no one else is going to do it for me. No substitutes allowed. Who knew? ;)

But first, in case you haven't already seen it, "Reaper" is out, and it is free!

I've had some complaints from people overseas (FYI, I'm in Texas, USA) that they can't get the Kindle format (or one of the others), or they can't get their format for free. I'm sorry about that. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about international availability and I don't know when that availability will change. But..."Reaper" is available in PDF format and that should be readable anywhere in the world, so long as you read English and have Adobe (the free version). It will be up on my site just as soon as I receive the file from my publisher, and it will stay free on my site forever, even after the other sites/formats have to start charging for it.

So, here's where you can find it, in various formats:

• Harlequin Teen - Adobe, microsoft, and mobipocket formats. If you can, please go get it here. This is my publisher, and they've indulged my wish that "Reaper" be free, and they've been awesome in promoting it. Also, when you buy books direct from the publisher ("Reaper" is free, but the others aren't), you ALWAYS get a discount over retail.
• Barnes & Noble - "Reaper" is currently free on the Nook, which I find very cool!
• Amazon.com - if you have a Kindle, here's where you can get "Reaper" for free.
• Books on Board - They have it in several formats, but they seem to be charging for most of them. Not sure why. But if you don't have an ereader, this is a good way to go, because BoB has a free PDF, which doesn't require a reader or any software, other than the free version of Adobe
• Books-A-Million currently has "Reaper" listed at $2.99 in several formats, including Sony, Alex, and Onyx. I'm not sure why they're charging for all formats, but there's nothing I can do about that. Sorry!
• Borders doesn't appear to be carrying "Reaper." Not sure why. Fortunately, you can find it at all of the links above!
  

In other news...I didn't quite make my November writing goal, which is disappointing. However, I did make very good progress in the book and am currently on track to finish, rewrite, and have it turned in Jan 1. May have to work through the holiday, though.

Here's where the new adult book stands:

74,539 / 100,000
(74.54%)

And here's my November progress:

58,159 / 65,000
(89.48%)

Given two more days, I would have easily made it, but November ends when it ends. Now to finish the book!

And, last of all, I got a box full of leftover ARCs of My Soul To Steal! Check back in tomorrow for a giveaway!

"Reaper" is here!

Today, I have a guest post up at the HQ Paranormal blog, talking about "Reaper," which is out today! And it's free in several formats, here!

I'm also answering questions about Soul Screamers and "Reaper" at the HQTeen Facebook page, and to celebrate the "Reaper" release, they're giving away a copy of each of the first three Soul Screamers books! All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment/question on the appropriate wall post.