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Twitter Poll: Vote for what I should write next!

Twitter Poll: Vote for what I should write next!

Ok guys, I’ve got quite a few WIPs hanging around my folders right now and I’d really love to hear from you all what you’d like to read next!

I’ve got a twitter poll running for the next couple days which you can find here: https://twitter.com/LiaCooperWrites/status/896084851907936257

Here is some extra info about the polling options:

  1. Blood & Bone #4: a sequel to The Symbiotic Law dealing with the fallout from the book and investigating a few other loose ends from the original trilogy
  2. Kingdom of Pacchia #5: a sequel set in the future exploring the lives of Aubrey and Dierik’s eldest son (just turned 14) while the family awaits the arrival of Aubrey’s latest child.
  3. F/F Sleeping Beautyish retelling: A lady knight errant finds a kingdom bound by a conflict between science-magic-religion.
  4. M/M Scifi/Archaeologist: the youngest son of a galactic emperor is exploring the archaeological ruins of a planet on the distant edges of their space when he stumbles across a pirate fleet.

Let me know which you’d like to see before the end of the year by voting in that poll!

https://twitter.com/LiaCooperWrites/status/896084851907936257

Random WIP Snippets

Random WIP Snippets

IDK you guys. While my current project (a standalone paranormal i’ve nicknamed Oly!Necro!Prof if you follow me on twitter 😉 ) eats my brain and grows far beyond its planned length or scope, here’s a random snippet of an epic, sprawling scifi story i desperately want to write but am too afraid to write (it’s got human augmentation/disability, f/m/m, thieves, artists, insurance investigators, and references to Donna Tartt)

From the unwritten TRIPTYCH

Agent Carmine felt the distinctive tug as the cross-planetary sweep drew to its final destination. Near-instantaneous sweep travel had its uses, but she could never quite grow accustomed the feeling that came with it, like being sucked through a straw by the force of a mach wind tunnel.

She blinked into the blinding metropolitan sun and then down at her feet, just to make sure that they were both there, planted shoulder width apart on the white plastine Arrivals platform.

“Good morning. Are you the police detective?”

Carmine looked up at the docent standing next to the platform. Hidden behind a pair of bug-eyed dark glasses, her augmented eyes swept him from prematurely balding head to the dusty toes of his shoes. In the face, he did not appear more than twenty-five.

Her stomach flipped over as she slouched down the ramp, left hand clenched tightly around the handle of her slim silver briefcase.

“No,” she said. She flicked back the edge of her jacket to reveal a holographic badge pinned to the under lapel; it displayed her picture, name, and employee IDENT mark. “I’m with the insurance company.”

The docent swallowed. “They sent me out here to meet the detective.”

“Then you’d better wait for them.”

The weather over the city burned too hot to be comfortable in a dark purple suit, and Carmine regretted the lack of foresight which had led her to dress that morning—after The Call, as the blood rushed loud in her ears from anticipation—without first checking the forecast. She shook out her arm as she walked up to the post-post-post High Modern Institute for the Arts, and shoved both tight velvet sleeves up into the crook of her elbows.

This high above ground level, all of the cloud scrapers were faced in light reflective materials that did a good job of fending off the planet’s heat, but the glare they cast cut through the darkest glasses to leave one’s eyes watering. The High Modern Institute was the same, shaped in soft, sweeping curves made to look like white adobe, but were, no doubt, composed of some recycled plastine hauled out of the ocean on the back of a fishing trawler after there were no fish left to trawl. The architects and city planners made a good show of things though, composing this sprawling slice of Old Earth against a backdrop of washed out blue vaseline sky and wispy white clouds.

Carmine stepped through the automatic doors and showed her badge to the security attendant at the turnstile. They were closed that morning, but her company’s name was enough to gain attendance to the inner lobby—even if they hadn’t seen fit to send someone outside to wait for her. From there it was a matter of presenting herself to the Customer Service desk and waiting until a managing docent could be fetched.

She slouched against the chest high counter, one sneakered foot pressed flat against the smooth surface, and her fingers clenched still tighter around her briefcase. Her dark glasses remained on while she waited so as to facilitate her examination of the Institute’s employees. The building may have been closed to the public, but it appeared that no one had seen fit to give the exhibit guides day off, and now they clustered around the lobby in little cliques, whispering and staring towards the East Wing.

“You didn’t waste any time,” a man’s voice grumbled from her left.

 <—— and some random protagonist brainstorming art cuz never say i can’t procrastinate

IDK, I just find writing scifi really scary. Anyone else feel that way?

Lia’s WIP Corner

Lia’s WIP Corner

The Kingdom of Pacchia Book 3 & The Profane Series Book 2

Indy's_whipHappy early weekend my lovelies, I just wanted to drop in real quick and post some updates about whats going on in my little corner of the writing world. It’s been a busy two months since Medium Rare went live. In that time I’ve started work on three–that’s right–THREE WIPs, all of which are moving along at a decent pace.

First off I’ve got Vaper Trail underway, which will be the follow-up to Medium Rare and the second book in The Profane Series. This book picks up shortly after the end of Medium Rare and focuses on Lachlan Graham’s continuing decent into the supernatural world while Vector struggles to understand his new assignment in the FBI. Hopefully this book should be coming out around September or October of this year. I’ll be posting chapters for you to read as we get closer to the deadline.

Secondly, I started writing Book 4 in The Kingdom of Pacchia series. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned before but I have plans for SIX books to come out in this series total and my goal is to have it wrapped up before December of this year. This series is one of my guilty pleasures and I really love writing it, but it’s been floating around in the world since August 2014 and I think it’s time I put the peddle to the meddle and finish it up for all of you super patient readers 😀Pacchia4

Book 4: The Line of Allora returns the story to King Aubrey’s POV and opens with his long anticipated marriage to Lord Riven. As new challenges crop up in their domestic lives, the political situation in Pacchia unravels and comes to a head, forcing Aubrey to make some very big decisions as High King of Pacchia.
Hopefully Book 4 should be out in the next week or two. I’ll be posting a first chapter here before it goes live so keep your eyes peeled for that! In the meantime take a gander at the cover

—>

New Projects, New Penname

My third WIP is something a little different and I was hesitant at first to announce it here but as a really widely interested reader personally I figure there are going to be other people like me out there. Basically, in between working on on my ongoing series mentioned above, I’ve started working on a new series that will be published under the pen name Anne Cooper.

Why publish under a pen name? For a couple reasons, in this case my goal is to separate genres that might not interest all of my readers. As Lia Cooper I publish M/M fiction and I don’t want to muddle that.

But while I love writing M/M and consider it my primary genre, as a lady, I like to read about ladies too. So I’ve started this sideproject under the name Anne Cooper of what I like to term my lady-centric series.

The first in this series is about a small town witch who finds herself in an alternate reality close but not quite identical to the one she knows. The series is called THE ALT MERIDIAN, and the first book is titled Beyond Death. If like me you enjoy the occasional lady-centric paranormal action/drama, I’ll be posting Beyond Death in its entirety on Wattpad as I write it.

So, that’s whats going on in this neck of the woods. Stay tuned for previews of Pacchia 4 and have and awesome weekend! Now I’m off to take a break and start building my new computer 😉

Sneak Peak: The Profane Series Book 1: Medium Rare – Chapter 1a

Sneak Peak: The Profane Series Book 1: Medium Rare – Chapter 1a

Writing is coming along at a good clip this month, and I’m planning on releasing Book 1 in the Profane Series: Medium Rare during the first week of February… Sort of like a 2 year anniversary celebration.

In the meantime, I thought I’d post the first couple of chapters for you guys to take a sneak peak at. These are still rough, mostly unedited, and subject to tweaking before they go to Amazon, but I hope you enjoy them!

I think you can expect 1-2 updates a week until February.

Chapter 1a: May 2012 – Capitol Hill – Lachlan

Last night a girl had died. He only knew this because, as he had left his own apartment the following day for his morning—emphasis in this case being absolutely necessary—coffee run, he had encountered the girl’s grandmother crying just outside her door one floor below him.

“Oh, it’s you, Lachlan. I’m sorry, dear, let me just get out of your way.”

“Good morning, Amelia.” Lachlan Graham paused, one foot on the next step, one foot in the hallway, torn between comforting a neighbor in distress and the amount of energy it would require to deal with her. “Something wrong?” he asked.

Her sigh shivered through her whole body, her hands shaking as she blotted at the tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. It didn’t look as though she’d had the time to apply her face that morning before the instigating emotional event, because despite the presence of water flowing down her face, there were no dark mascara stains on her cheeks.

…

Read More Read More

Latest Updates from Lia’s WIP Corner

Latest Updates from Lia’s WIP Corner

Long Time No Blog-y

Indy's_whipOh, man guys, have I been terrible about blogging or what? Life is so crazy and I feel like I never have enough writing related news to warrant a whole post here. But I also feel it’s important to reassure you that I’m not dead and that I am writing.

First, the thing that’s been keeping me up at night: my sister and I are opening a tea room/lunch cafe! It’s so crazy and we’ve been so busy–I’ve found 2 new grey hairs! It’s exciting though. We’re leasing a little kiosk with a beautiful atrium in a restored historic building in Downtown Olympia. We’re not quite ready to open, we had some set backs with the health department requiring us to update pretty much every single piece of equipment in the kiosk and we still need to submit out Food Business application but we’re in the homestretch it feels like. In December, we’re going to be selling English Tea and gifts for the holidays since we can’t actually serve food yet. It’s very exciting! We’re going to make up some gift mugs and such as soon as the christmas crackers I ordered come in.

I can’t say how thankful I am to have all you lovely readers reading my books, buying/borrowing my novels, and supporting me! My sister and I have long dreamed of opening a tea shop or cafe and it never would have happened without my books finding an audience with you all.

If you follow me on twitter you’ve probably seen some of my baked goods as I’m in the process of testing all our recipes for the shop.

Book News

But enough about the tea room, let’s talk about books. The Source and the Wire by Lia CooperIn case you missed it, I released a contemporary (with a dash of magical realism and soulbonding) novella at the end of september called The Source and the Wire. This novella was one of the first things I began writing while I lived in Pullman, very shortly after deciding I wanted to write for a living and is still one of the stories very dear to my heart–it even has a happy ending! So be sure and check that story out if you haven’t.

Blood & Bone Book 3: The Symbiotic Law

I’m roughly 3/4 finished writing the final book in the Blood & Bone Trilogy and lmty, it’s a doozy. This book is wildly different from both previous novels, charting an adventure literally around the world, and I’m so excited to share it with you all. I know this trilogy has been a rocky emotional ride, full of lots of frustration, so I hope book 3 will be just the welcome relief you’ve all been patiently waiting for. My current goal is to publish book 3 before Christmas. I’ll be giving away a free copy as we get closer to launch for people subscribed to my mailing list:

Sign Up To Lia’s Mailing List For A Chance To Win BLOOD & BONE 3!

Forthcoming Projects Winter 2014-Early 2015

  • Secret Christmas romance (Title/Cover reveal Dec 1!) between a small town coffee shop owner and a new in town novelist trying to connect with his dead father
  • Substitutions for Lemons, a f/f novel involving a down-on-her luck baker and a French mail-order-bride
  • The Kingdom of Pacchia Book 2: Courted by the Alpha, political tensions run high as the disfavored Lord Riven begins a tentative courtship of the Crown Prince Aubrey, set against a back-drop of betrayal and strained loyalties.

Book 2: The Convergence Theory Book News

Book 2: The Convergence Theory Book News

convergence rightside up small
Available on Amazon $2.99
So I made a DAY-Of post about the release of my new book here and on twitter but I’m a big believer in NOT SPAMMING my list so after that first day I kind of stayed quiet. But you know, we all have busy lives and don’t always stay up-to-the-minute on our blogroll or RSS feeds. I figure it’s time to make another little post saying Hey, lookit, I published the sequel!

You can read chapter 1 here on my blog.

Blurb:

Walking away from your soulmate is not for the faint of heart…

Following the Matilde Walker murder, Detective Ethan Ellison is back working misdemeanors and minor crimes, but he’s only just begun to realize how much the experience has changed his life.

Meanwhile, Detective Patrick Clanahan would give anything to get the memory of Ethan out of his head. If he can’t have him, and every sign suggests that he can’t, he sure has hell wishes everything at the station didn’t remind him of the other man.

Murder, UST, pining, and emotional turmoil lurk right around the corner for both men as Seattle hurtles to the hottest summer on record and their fates bring them back together in THE CONVERGENCE THEORY, Book Two in the Blood & Bone Trilogy.

This is the tense sequel to THE DUALITY PARADIGM.

Contains explicit M/M and minor M/F content.

Review Copies

As with THE DUALITY PARADIGM, I will be offering review copies for people who are interested. I only ask that you write an HONEST review, state that you received a review copy somewhere in your review, and post your review on the web and link me (Amazon, Goodreads, personal blog etc). If you’re interested in reviewing Book 2 send me an email: liacooperromance AT gmail DOT com.

Book 3 News

So what’s in store next? I’ve got ~33% of the final book in the trilogy written and I’ll be working on that over the next couple of months. Originally i’d hoped to have to ready to be published very soon after book 2 but it looks like early Winter is going to be more accurate. I’ll be posting a sneak peak of the cover and Chapter 1 as we get closet to the release date, so stay tuned!

I’ve also started a tumblr based WIP called The Omega Prince. TOP began life as an exercise in having fun with my writing. I just wanted to write a sweet fantasy AU, not of our world, that examined Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics in a non oppressive culture. IDK about you but I get sick and tired of fantasy AUs that are just our world, with all of its prejudices and misogyny, and the serial numbers scrubbed off.

Here’s the first snippet for you reading pleasure:

He was Lord Riven now, the only son of the late Lord Riven.

A middle child, considered spoilt and indolent in his youth through very little fault of his own. It was the prerogative of the peerage to keep their children in the comfortable style to which they themselves were raised. And so the youngest Lord Riven was instructed by tutors in the manor castle, taught to ride and mock fight, and left to enjoy the pleasanter pastimes in life such as hunting every day except Sundurn, which was reserved for feasting.

The son, known to his sisters and closest companions as Dierik, was little seen at the High Court of the King of Lyle, and there was much talk bandied amongst the other houses when his fourteenth birthday came and went without his joining the King’s Guard as was the want of most noble sons looking to distinguish themselves.

No acts of valor, scholarship, or might were thus put forward to advance the young Dierik, and his name was predominantly forgotten until his twenty-fourth year when news reached the High Court that Lord Riven and his household, excepting the son and the youngest daughter, had been murdered in their beds and the manor castle burned to its foundations.

After that, the name Riven was explicably attached to gratuitous rumors ofpatricide and plot though no evidence ever surfaced that the son was in fact the root cause of his family’s fall. The damage was already done. The more greedy and tenacious corners of the court, smelling blood, were quick to circle the floundering house. Within a month expeditionary forces began to make their presence felt all along the Lord Riven’s boarders and shortly after, the son gathered his knights and loyal vassals and marched to his defenses.

That was eight years ago.

You can read along with the rest of it as I write it here: http://lia-cooper-writes.tumblr.com/ and the tag #the omega prince.

Lia’s WIP Corner: Pre-Camp Edition 2014, Where To Find Lia In April!

Lia’s WIP Corner: Pre-Camp Edition 2014, Where To Find Lia In April!

Indy's_whipThis will be my last post in the Countdown to Camp NaNoWriMo (we’ll be ~3 days out when this post goes live). April 1st you can follow my twitter for daily writing updates, word count progress, snippets from The Convergence Theory (which I’ll be editing during April while I’m writing Book 3), and TCT’s cover reveal!

For this last planning post I’m going to talk a little bit more about my Camp goals and prep.

Camp NaNoWriMo Goals 2014

  1. Write 85k draft of the Blood & Bone Trilogy Book 3
  2. Edit/revise Book 2: The Convergence Theory

Pretty simple goals, right?

Book 3: Is it too soon to announce the title?

As I head into writing Book 3, I’ve already had several brainstorming conversations with my writing partner. I’ve been thinking about what this book would be about for about 8 months–almost as long as I’ve been working on Book 2, tbh–though it’s only in the last month or so I’ve made concrete decisions about what the plot will look like.

I can tell you that Book 3 will be more of an adventure novel rather than a procedural mystery, and it will feature a LOT of Ethan & Patrick, which I think you guys will enjoy. Basically, after the first two books I figure you guys all deserve a little tooth decay WITH your badass werewolf/mage duo ;D

I like going into Camp with a general idea of what my Beginning, Middle, and End and in the last couple days of this month I will be drawing more detailed plot outlines for the book. I’ve won NaNoWriMo’s 50k challenge once before, back in 2012 and this April I’m going to try pushing myself a little further with an 85k word goal. I have a habit of writing ⅓ or ⅔’s of a book and stalling out on it, letting it sit for six or eight months before getting around to finishing it. So I think this one book from start to finish goal will be good for my process.

Get Involved!

I’m still accepting Beta Readers for Book 2. If you’re interested sign-up over here. A revised copy of the draft will be going out to beta’s in early April. Chapter 1 will be available April 1st for everyone signed up to my Mailing List as a thank you for following.

Also, stay tuned for The Convergence Theory’s COVER REVEAL which will be coming at the end of Camp. And guys, let me tell you, I’m super excited to show it to you 😀

Kind of a short post this week but I figure you’re probably sick of hearing about camp and it hasn’t even started yet, woops. I’m just excited and I want to share that excitement with everyone who reads my blog.

Cya next month!

Call For Beta Readers, The Convergence Theory

Call For Beta Readers, The Convergence Theory

So, peddle to the medal, I’ve been pushing myself to finish writing Blood & Bone Book Two: The Convergence Theory (the sequel to my debut novel The Duality Paradigm).

When I was writing TDP I had a hard time finding beta readers because very few of my irl friends read M/M fiction–scratch that, NONE of them read it :(((( But it occurs to me that there might be a few of you who read this blog who, you know, DO like M/M fiction and may be here because you read TDP and enjoyed it?? maybe?

So, I’m going to put out an open call for beta readers for Book Two, to read during April/May, and offer feedback/concrit, chat with me about the book, and write reviews if you felt so inclined.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in participating in, fill out the form below and I will get back to you 🙂

Have you read The Duality Paradigm?

Lia’s WIP Corner: A First Look At “The Convergence Theory”

Lia’s WIP Corner: A First Look At “The Convergence Theory”

If you follow this blog you might have noticed my (many) posts about The Duality Paradigm, a book I published at the beginning of February (my debut novel!!). Duality is the first book in the BLOOD & BONE Trilogy, which is my focus this week in Lia’s WIP corner.

Wolf_Canis_lupus_laying_in_grassThe Blood & Bone Trilogy takes place in a not-too-dissimilar Seattle where magic and the supernatural rub elbows with the mundane. The protagonists, Detectives Ethan Ellison and Patrick Clanahan, could not be anymore opposite. One is a magician, one is a werewolf—one is an unapologetic slut, the other is waiting to find his soulmate. But a human murder in disputed werewolf territory means that the two have to work together to find the killer before the story leaks to the general population and all manner of hell breaks loose. It isn’t long before sparks fly between the two and nothing in their lives will ever be simple again.

You can read the first chapter of The Duality Paradigm here on my blog.

First Look: Blood & Bone Book Two

The second book in the BLOOD & BONE Trilogy—The Convergence Theory—follows Ethan and Patrick as they try to deal with the emotional fallout from Duality while investigating a series of break-ins, grave desecrations, and murders. The full chapter will be posted to this blog on April 1st so check back for that. In the meantime, I’m going to give you a sneak peak:

A wizard is a self-contained unit. These pagans will try to fill your head full of balance and nature and threads. They’ll try to tie you down with their tree hugging morality. Don’t let them. Your magic is here, between your eyes, and in the strength in your hands and under your tongue. It is inside you, not in anyone else.

~ Alexandre Pelletier to his son Ethan, age 5

#

Branches snapped, bones crunched and then were ground underfoot. Blood, which is a very precise science, sprayed out like water from a garden hose. And it was difficult to tell, as the mud churned beneath their feet, where one furry body turned into another. Where he should grip and aim and kill. He was terrified to get it wrong.

Panic: a helium filled balloon that rose up in his throat and choked him.

Yelps, barks, and snarls rang out but he was frozen in indecision.

Power surged through him and fizzled when he cut it off, held it back. He screamed in his own head at his own indecision, but he didn’t act.

He didn’t act.

And the wolf’s back broke.

But that’s not how it happened.

##

For people who have read The Duality Paradigm, you know that I promised the sequel by Fall 2014. This is a very conservative release estimate. My hope is actually to have it ready for publication this summer with a mid-summer release of the third book. I know I left you with a cruel cliff hanger so I’m working hard to get the rest of the series written. If you have any questions about Duality, please feel free to ask them (here on my blog, through goodreads or amazon) or email me.

Lia’s Upcoming Book Projects

My novella The Source & The Wire is temporarily on hold while I focus on the Blood & Bone Trilogy but I’ll be getting back to that story hopefully by the end of the summer.

Burne-Jones-le-VampireI also have a series of connected novellas I’m going to be working on this fall. The collection is tentatively titled A Date With The Night and will feature 3 stories about complex relationships between humans and the supernatural, D/s kink, and seduction. The first story will follow a series of one night stands between Henrik—a vampire hunter—and Isabella the vampire queen as they struggle against their mutual attraction and their instincts to take one another out.

2014’s Publishing Schedule–More Details To Come!

  • Blood & Bone Book Two – June 1st

  • Blood & Bone Book Three – August 1st

  • The Source & The Wire – September 1st

  • A Date With The Night #1 – October 10th

  • A Date With The Night #2 – October 30th

  • A Date With The Night #3 – November 15th

  • ADWTN Omnibus – Early December

Quick Reminder

My short story Ava, Sublime is FREE on kindle today and tomorrow! So, if you’re looking for something short, tense and hot to read over the weekend, check it out 😉