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New Release: It’s Finally Here, Blood & Bone Book 4

New Release: It’s Finally Here, Blood & Bone Book 4

Check out the haunting conclusion to the Blood & Bone Series!

It’s finally here lovely readers, the long awaited sequel to The Symbiotic Law!

Writing the original trilogy was an amazing experience and I knew very shortly after publishing The Symbiotic Law that I had to write a follow-up story delving into the emotional fallout from that novel, but I’ll admit that it took me some time to be in a place where I felt that I *could* tackle that narrative. A Sanguine Solution is the result of several years carefully feeling my way through Ethan Ellison’s tangled emotions and I couldn’t be more pleased with the direction the story took.

Writing A Sanguine Solution this year has truly opened up so many new creative avenues and new plot threads in this universe that I’m excited to continue exploring. And while this will truly be the last book in the Blood & Bone series, I can say for certain that it won’t be the last story about these characters (but I’ll have more to say on that in the coming months ;))

For now, please enjoy Blood & Bone #4: A Sanguine Solution.

Blurb

How do you keep getting up in the morning when you can’t to look at yourself in the mirror?

Having returned to Seattle, Ethan Ellison would say that he’s trying to piece his life back together but who is he kidding? There’s no returning to life as he knew it, not after Ali’s revelation about their parentage. Now, Ethan’s haunted by personal ghosts and plagued by increasingly temperamental magic.

For Patrick Clanahan, returning to work should be easier than dealing with a mate who can’t stand his touch. But there’s nothing easy about a series of murders that all point to vampire activity in a city where there are no vampires. It’s bringing back to mind the murder of his last partner, slain by vampires a year before he met Ethan—as though Pat didn’t have enough to worry about.

Return to the world of Blood & Bone’s alternative supernatural Seattle, where Ethan and Patrick are about to face their darkest inner demons and scratch the lid on a cover-up bigger than either of them.

This novel picks up after the events of the original trilogy as well as Medium Rare (The Profane Series #1) and Vapor Trail (The Profane Series #2).

Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

ATTN: Book Reviewers (ARCs for B&B4 A Sanguine Solution)

ATTN: Book Reviewers (ARCs for B&B4 A Sanguine Solution)

Hello my lovelies! I wanted to write up a quick life update because things have been a little crazy out here in my neck of the woods and whenever life gets busy it has a habit of affecting book releases.

If you don’t follow me on twitter, I’ll start by saying that I’ve started working as a barista again for the holidays at a very busy starbucks. It’s a great opportunity to work with a lot of really cool people but it did come at a time when I’ve been struggling to balance so many creative projects. I’ve also been participating in NaNoWriMo, vlogging the first half of November, and finishing up edits on B&B #4. As I’ve mentioned here a few times, I’m intending to release Blood & Bone #4: A Sanguine Solution in the very near future. Originally I had hoped it would be out at the end of October but now we’re looking at “before Christmas.”

Since there’s a little bit more of a lead on the release, I thought I would take the opportunity to offer ARCs of B&B4 to interested book reviewers in exchange for an honest review after release. Seeing as this is the fourth book in a series in an extended universe, I do have a short little questionnaire for you to fill out to request an ARC if you’re interested:

>> https://goo.gl/forms/efMZ9UDCl3VnzPUK2

Copies should be made available sometime in the next two weeks, so please fill out the form and let me know before then!

Sneak Peak: Blood & Bone #4 – A Sanguine Solution 5/?

Sneak Peak: Blood & Bone #4 – A Sanguine Solution 5/?

The countdown to Book 4 continues this week with another snippet from B&B 4: A Sanguine Solution.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4.

B&B 3.5 Remainders, an f/f novella set during The Symbiotic Law is also now available through amazon!

Chapter 2b

Patrick

Pat met Sabira Mallory in the parking lot. She had a newspaper raised over her head to fend off the rain.

“I spent most of last night making phone calls,” she said.

Their trip to the club near yesterday’s body had been frustratingly fruitless. Despite Mallory’s assertion that someone would have to be on the premises to get ready for the evening’s crowd, they had been met with a quiet, locked building. Pat’s wolf senses had confirmed that there hadn’t been anyone home.

“Hopefully Lynch has a name for us,” he murmured, holding the door open for her.

…

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Sneak Peak: Blood & Bone #4 – A Sanguine Solution 4/?

Sneak Peak: Blood & Bone #4 – A Sanguine Solution 4/?

The countdown to Book 4 continues this week with another snippet from B&B 4: A Sanguine Solution.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3.

B&B 3.5 Remainders, an f/f novella set during The Symbiotic Law is also now available through amazon!

Chapter 2a

 

Ethan

Once upon a time, Ethan Ellison had been a simple man, doing a simple job for the Seattle Police Department, living an uncomplicated life. He had fucked whomever he wanted to fuck. Had drunk. Had danced. Had solved simple crimes involving petty people smart enough to abuse magic but dumb enough not to do it very well.

It was easy to see how that all fell apart; to track the moments he went awry. It began that morning Police Captain Jordan Augustas called him into her office to meet his temporary partner: Patrick Clanahan, werewolf, Major Crimes, kind of a dick but ultimately a decent sort of guy.

…

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Sneak Peak: Blood & Bone #4 – A Sanguine Solution 3/?

Sneak Peak: Blood & Bone #4 – A Sanguine Solution 3/?

The countdown to Book 4 continues this week with another snippet from B&B 4: A Sanguine Solution.

Read Part 1 and Part 2.

B&B 3.5 Remainders, an f/f novella set during The Symbiotic Law is also now available through amazon!

Chapter 1c

“Sorry,” the wolf muttered, though there wasn’t anything apologetic about his tone, only a hint of confusion and more bitterness than was probably healthy to hear in the voice of the man who claimed to be in love with you.

“Are you tired?” Pat asked. “Hungry? I could fix you something.”

“It’s too early for dinner.”

“I’ll start something,” he said, disappearing into the kitchen.

…

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Sneak Peak: Blood & Bone #4 – A Sanguine Solution 2/?

Sneak Peak: Blood & Bone #4 – A Sanguine Solution 2/?

 The countdown to Book 4 continues this week with another snippet from B&B 4: A Sanguine Solution. Go Here to read the first part.

B&B 3.5 Remainders, an f/f novella set during The Symbiotic Law is also now available through amazon!

Chapter 1b

Ethan

He was relieved when the email came through, informing him that his request for time off had been granted effective immediately.

Ethan closed Pat’s laptop and got up from his desk—it was spare, like the rest of the werewolf’s townhouse, neat and tidy in a way that suggested the room wasn’t used very often, rather than that it was frequently picked up.

The townhouse was quiet. Pat’s cousins, who lived next door, were gone for the rest of the month on a snowboarding trip over winter break. Ethan relished the peace, soaked it up until it weighed down his bones. He slid onto the couch and stretched out on his stomach, cheek pressed into the rough cushion. He breathed slowly, pushing all the air out of his lungs and holding his breath until they ached before he broke and inhaled again. A weight that he could sink under.

From his position, Ethan could see the edge of his book—it wasn’t even his book, it belonged to a dead man, inherited through something like attrition—poking out from between the cushions of one of the matching campaign chairs. He’d read it cover to cover by now, there wasn’t much else to do since he had yet to find a secret stash of paperbacks, DVDs or even porn. Pat Clanahan, it turned out, wasn’t much of a reader.

…

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Understanding Your Own Romantic Tastes

Understanding Your Own Romantic Tastes

I’ve struggled writing book 3 in the Blood & Bone Trilogy and I thought it was just because I struggle with romance in general (I know–a romance writer who struggles with romance???). I ask myself why I write romance and I do it for a couple reasons:

  • I love reading romance
  • It seemed the easiest place to dip my feet into self-publishing
  • I REALLY love reading romance
  • I have the most experience with what could be classified as romantic stories (from, again, a reading perspective and I feel it’s pretty sound advice to write in a genre you’re familiar with)

But like on a personal level I am about the least romantic person I know. I don’t get real life romance. I feel like a computer going DOES NOT COMPUTE. So, I’ll read a story where two people falling in love is the central theme and just goggle over how amazing it is, sitting down to WRITE the gritty details of how that works has been…difficult. Overwhelming. Like staring up at a clifface knowing I’m supposed to climb it and being frozen with fear because guys–i HATE rock climbing, legit hate it.

Falling-in-love vs Realizing-you’re-in-love

Embed from Getty Images

But in the last month, while I tried to wrangle what it was about Book 3 I was stuck on specifically I realized something both about the book and about my own reading tastes:

I almost always read stories where the characters are basically already in love and either a) pining or b) oblivious to their own feelings. But the point is, the “in-love” stuff already exists.

Book 3….well…Pat and Ethan aren’t pining OR oblivious to their own feelings. Like, they legit are not in love with one another. The thing that was tripping me up is how do two people FALL in love? This is a conundrum that is not readily answered in the sorts of stuff I like to read AS A READER. It’s pretty uncharted territory.

I keep wondering, if I just lock them in the starboard broom closet and mash their faces together will they eventually fall in love?

(also searching Getty Images for “two men in love” returns srsly hetero results, what’s up with that getty images?)

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 😉

Mages & Werewolves, oh my!

Mages & Werewolves, oh my!

69000 / 80000 words. 86% done!

Just hit 69,000 words on the first draft of my Mages and Werewolves story. And yes, before you ask the Scrivener file is actually still titled Mages & Werewolves, oh my! because I’m still not 100% satisfied with my other working title (Bone and Blood, which my writing partner has pointed out could imply vampires, not something I want to really imply with this story!)

I’m still pretty blown away by this word count. I know in the grand scope of writing it’s actually not very impressive but for myself, it’s pretty damn monumental. Prior to this story, the longest thing I’d ever written and come close to finishing hit 21,000 before going on hiatus.

My original goal for this first draft was 65k; that obviously didn’t happen. I’m now looking at about 80k with the idea that at least 10,000 words will probably get cut in the first revision. I know the weakness with my writing style on this story has been unnecessarily wordy action descriptions and I definitely want to trim some of that out before I send the story off to beta. Overall, and at the end of the day, as long as the final draft is 60k I’ll be happy. I think that’s an admirable goal for a debut novel. Not too long or weighty, with hopefully tight enjoyable narrative. If there’s one thing I’ve learned going to Evergreen, it’s that short and good is much more difficult to achieve than long and…less good. 😉

From Bone & Blood

You’ll never find a married witch. Women are just smarter about these things. Occasionally you may run across a warlock trying to make a go of it, but this inevitably ends in disaster. Heavy magic users tend to share a common, and disastrous, personality type: narcissistic, self-absorbed and forgetful. And if you think they make terrible spouses, then the truth is, they make even worse mates. This is something every wolfcub knows, in his gut. 

In his heart.