Summoning Darkness Cover

Here's the cover for my YA romance, Summoning Darkness. MuseItUp's newest cover artist, Kaytalin Platt, came up with three different covers based on my description and excerpts. I really liked two of them for their simplicity and also artistic beauty. One had a couple of feathers falling down, the other had a couple in silhouette kissing. My mother loved the feathers, I liked the couple. So I thought, why not combine the two? Luckily for me Kaytalin went along with it and hence the cover for Summoning Darkness was born.

Submission Call: Harlequin

Harliquin's Nocturne Bites line appears to be changing. Harlequin are transitioning their Nocturne Bites line to Nocturne Cravings. The interesting thing about this for me is the word count. Bites were always limited to about 15K. Cravings can reach 25K. As I can't seem to write a short story to save myself, I never managed to get together anything to submit to Bites. But 25K? that's doable.

Here are the guidelines:

Length: 15,000–25,000 words
Senior Executive Editor: Tara Gavin
Associate Senior Editor: Ann Leslie Tuttle
Harlequin Nocturne is looking to acquire bold, exciting, erotic paranormal romance short stories for its eBook program, Nocturne Cravings. These stories should be fast-paced paranormals with strong erotic fantasy and danger elements. Authors should feel comfortable exploring any and all sexual scenarios and shouldn't shy away from graphically sensual situations. In fact, the short stories should contain many erotic scenes that compel and bind the characters together. Strong, emotional characters that grab the readers imagination are also essential.
We are looking for stories of vampires, shape-shifters, werewolves, psychic powers, etc. set in contemporary times. Stories should deliver a dark, highly sensual read that will entertain readers and take them from everyday life into an atmospheric, complex world filled with characters struggling with life-and-death issues. A strong alpha hero is of utmost importance—he should be powerful, mysterious and totally attractive to the heroine. While action-packed and mission-oriented, the scope of these stories should be more contained, with additional focus placed on character development and erotic situations.
All stories should be capable of standing alone; all loose ends need to be tied up, and the relationship between hero and heroine should resolve itself in a satisfying manner.
For published authors, this line is a great way to explore more erotic scenarios and different fantasy elements. Unpublished authors are welcome as well.
Only complete manuscripts submitted electronically will be considered from unpublished authors; no partials or queries, please. Submissions should be sent as a Word-compatible attachment. Submissions should also follow standard formatting guidelines and should be double-spaced and typed in a clear, legible font on numbered pages. Author name and title should appear as a header or footer on each page.

New Release Contest

I'm celebrating the release of my Urban Fantasy novel, the Chameleon's Bite, with a contest!

Not only could you win a copy of my novel, you could also win a $20 Amazon voucher!!

All you have to do is help me decide what I should write next.

Should I write:

A) An urban fantasy novel involving greek gods?
B) A young adult horror?

I'll choose a winner at random over the next week. Don't foget to include your e-mail in your answer so I can send you the prizes if you win.

New Release: the Chameleon's Bite

 The Chameleon's Bite

Blurb:

All part goddess, part vampire Jade Carver wants is to slay the bad guys. Having an indestructible sword should help. If only it would show up when she wants it to. Being able to see the bad guy coming would be even better.
A deadly Chameleon terrorises the city.
Capable of not only blending into its surrounding – it becomes its surroundings. The Chameleon has noticed Jade and it wants a taste of her.

As if things aren’t bad enough, Jade Carver’s love life is about to get a whole lot worse. Jade soon discovers the man she falls in love with, Dark Elf assassin, Aeron Blake, has been sent to kill her.

Jade might find love in the arms of the mysterious elf. All she has to do it survive his deadly elf blades first.

New Contracts

Well, I have some good news. MuseItUp Publishing have offered me a contract for Summoning Darkness. This is a dramatic urban fantasy story featuring gypsy magic, werewolves, a greek goddess, a mad scientist and much more. It's scheduled for release August 2011. That's about the time my first novel, Blood Talisman goes to print!

Also, my horror flash, Kiss the Bride, was accepted by Pill Hill Press for inclusion in one of their horror anthos. I'm using my maiden name, Erika Millard, for this because it's horror and very different from my previously pubbed writing. I plan to write more horror and hope (cross fingers tight) to get some published one day! My dad loved horror and sci fi, so I think it would be fitting to use his sirname.

What else? Haven't heard back about Rise Above, the horror short I subbed to the Zombie Feed, an imprint of Apex. They state that anyone who hasn't recieved a rejection is being held for a final round of judging. So, I'm in 'zombie holding'. I would love to be accepted, but don't dare to hope. I can imagine there are hundreds of submissions by established zombie authors. Still, no news is good news :)

Meet Jade Carver of The Chameleon's Bite

Hello, I’m Jade Carver; former member of the Paranormal Assassins’ Guild, part goddess, part vampire and all round nice girl. I’m currently being pursued by a homicidal Chameleon that’s going around biting paranormals in order to consume their power. Being able to melt into the surroundings, the Chameleon can hide pretty much anywhere.  He’s given me a fright on more than one occasion, rising up out of the ground and appearing right in the middle of my living room. I know! Scary. I do have a secret weapon, however, in the form of an indestructible sword. Sounds good doesn’t it? And it is. It’s sharp and can cut through anything and, well, it can’t be destroyed. It’s great. When it shows up, that is. There have been many occasions when I’ve found myself reaching for my sword and coming up with nothing but air. Other times it appears when I really don’t want it to. The name says it all; Skraela Svero, or Screaming Sword. I know. Why couldn’t I have a weapon named Sweetly Singing Sword instead?

Mind you, I’ve been to some interesting places lately. Like Changeling City. Never heard of it? Neither had I. It’s a parallel city magically created by Changeling fairies. It’s become a place for the paranormal outlaws of the world to hide. It can be dangerous and magical, the perfect place for a psychotic Chameleon to hide. This is where I met Grand Master Vampire Hugo Vine, a vampire for whom even Master Vampires are slaves and mere vampires like me are cattle. For some reason this scary vamp has taken a liking to me.

I’ve also been to the Fairy Wildes; this is where the really bad fairies are sent for all eternity. I met a couple of Fire Dryads – these are basically tree fairies that can set an entire forest on fire. They like to burn people.

I’ve met some other . . . interesting people too. I’ve recently acquired a couple of houseguests: a newly turned pair of werewolves. Apart from ruining the furniture they could get me in a lot of trouble with my landlord. There’s also the witch Lucretia. She started out as a black witch but a run in with my sword kind of changed her. She’s a white witch now, though some part of her former self remains. I don’t entirely trust her.

Last but not least, there’s Dark-Elf assassin, Aeron Blake. I’m not sure how I feel about him. He’s tall and dark, with the greenest eyes you’ve ever seen and a six pack to die for . . . well you get the picture. He’s perfect for me. There’s just one slight problem. He was sent by the Paranormal Assassins’ Guild to kill me. Let’s face it. If I had a Facebook page my relationship status would read ‘it’s complicated’.

You’ll find my story in Erika Gilbert’s novel, The Chameleon’s Bite, coming out in 2011. Let’s hope she allows me to defeat the Chameleon. You never know, I might even find true love.

New Contract

I did it! I just signed the contract with MuseItUp Publishing for my Urban Fantasy novel, the Chameleon's Bite!
That'll be book number two!

Release date is tentatively scheduled for April 2011. All I have to do now is sit back and wait for the first round of edits to begin. Is it weird that I'm looking forward to this?

I'm also working on a short story to enter into a competition - winning entries receive publication and working on my YA project. The muse always keeps me busy.