Burn the Sky is Live!

What begins as a simple teaching assignment becomes both an affair of the heart and a life-and-death struggle. Cold-hearted Wytch Master Ilya must teach headstrong Prince Garrik how to control his dangerous Wytch power--or put him down, for the safety of all.

My M/M fantasy novel, Burn the Sky, is now available at Amazon, All Romance and Smashwords.

This is a 65,000 word stand-alone novel, but I do have ideas for more stories about these characters kicking around in my brain. This story takes place in the Kingdoms of Skanda, which is part of the same world as my other fantasy stories (Human Frailties, Human Strengths, and Human Choices).

Update, January 2015

1. Burn the Sky is set for a mid-January release. It's back from my copy editor, and I'm doing the final proofread now. Then I get to spend a day in Formatting Heaven. *happy sigh* (yeah, I'm weird... so sue me...)

2. Ghost in the Mythe (Book 3 in the Guardians of the Pattern Series) is in the rewrite stage (77,000 words out of a projected 100,000 words as of this morning). It's in much better shape than the last two were (she says hopefully), so I'm thinking I might be able to get it out for beta reading by mid-January.

3. Leythe-Blade. NaNo Project. Epic. Fail. But that's okay--it was meant to be a distraction during the early part of the month so I could think about something other than Husband Beast's upcoming Super-Scary Brain Surgery Adventure. I did get 17K into the story. This is another Guardians of the Leythe novel, and I'm guessing it will end up around 50K, time I've had my way with it. The whole thing is outlined, and I'll pick it up again later this month, while Ghost in the Mythe is out for beta reading.

4. Adventures in Brain Surgery. Went surprisingly smoothly and successfully, much to the relief of all concerned. Seriously, who would have thought one could come home three days after brain surgery? Husband Beast is well on the way to recovery, and should be getting back to work soon. It'll be a relief to have things back to normal (or as normal as they ever are around here!).

Burn the Sky: Cover Reveal and Excerpt

Burn the Sky is on track for a mid-January release, so I (finally) get to show you the cover Chinchbug did for it.

And here's a little taste to whet your appetite:

Master Tevari opened the saddlebag that Kian had abandoned. He pulled out a set of chains and manacles, similar to the ones Garrik had glimpsed in the castle dungeons on the rare occasions when he and Jaire had crept down there to explore.

“What are those for?” Garrik asked, worrying his lower lip between his teeth as he eyed the chains.

“Protection.”

Garrik let out a nervous laugh. The Wytch Master arched an eyebrow. His expression was deadly serious, and Garrik swallowed his laughter. “Whose protection?”

“Yours. And mine and Kian’s, should things come to such a pass.” Tevari handed the chains to Kian and motioned for Garrik to enter the nearest bedroom. Garrik sat on the bed and removed his boots and his heavy overtunic.

A few moments later, the Wytch Master entered the room, wooden cup in hand. He offered it to Garrik. “Drink this, Your Highness. All of it.”

Garrik sniffed the liquid and wrinkled his nose. It had a foul smell, and bubbled and fizzed ominously in the wooden cup. “What is it?”

“It will help lower your natural defenses, easing the way for me to seek your power.”

He drank it down, nearly gagging at the taste, then lay back on the bed. Kian’s movements were brisk and efficient as he locked the metals cuffs around Garrik’s wrists and ankles.

“Kian,” Garrik said in a low voice, “look at me.”

Kian finished securing the chains to the bed frame and slowly met his gaze.

“Are you truly so frightened?”

Kian’s eyes flicked toward the Wytch Master and then back to Garrik. “It is your safety and your sanity I fear for, Garrik,” he whispered. “Are you certain this is what you want?”

“It is,” Garrik said. “Not just for Altan, but for Jaire. What kind of life will he have if the Wytch Council forces him to take the throne?”

“What kind of life will he have if you are dead?” Kian whispered fiercely. “Have you thought of that? Who will protect him then?”

Dead? Garrik’s certainty began to waver. Kian and the Wytch Master surely knew what they were about. If they were both frightened…

He gave himself a mental shake. What Kian and Tevari thought didn’t matter. There was no other way to protect Jaire. He tore his gaze from Kian’s and focused on the Wytch Master. “I’m ready. Do it.”

The Wytch Master moved to his side. “Then prepare yourself, boy. Because this will hurt.”

Thank You!

The nomination period for this year's Goodreads M/M Romance Group's Member's Choice Awards has just finished, and the first round of voting has begun. If you're a member--go vote now!

I was thrilled to see that two of my stories have been nominated. Gremlin's Last Run was nominated for both Best Paranormal and Best Sci Fi/Futuristic/Post-Apocalyptic/Steampunk, and Human Choices was nominated for Best Love's Landscapes Story. Thank you so much to the people who enjoyed my stories enough to nominate them!

WIP Excerpt: Burn The Sky

By the time the sun had set, Garrik had had enough of breathing exercises, and his failure to master even the simplest one had him prickling at the Wytch Master’s every comment.

When Ilya calmly suggested he start again for perhaps the hundredth time, Garrik’s irritation finally bubbled over into anger. “Enough! What’s the point of this? How is this going to teach me to control the shift?”

Ilya said nothing, but regarded his student with an expectant expression, as if waiting for him to continue.

“Breathing is simple,” Garrik tried to explain, “and… and I don’t even have to think about it. Shifting is… it just happens. I can’t stop it.”

“But you can stop your breathing.”

Garrik stared at him helplessly. “It’s not the same thing.”

“It is very much the same thing. The difference is simply a matter of degree. Both your breath and the shift are within your control.”

He had nothing to say to that. How did one control something that was so utterly beyond control? Garrik wasn’t the one causing the shift — it was happening to him, whether he wanted it or not.

“Begin again,” Ilya said in that infuriatingly calm voice.

That cool air of superiority sent a surge of white hot fury coursing through Garrik.

As before, the shift began without warning. One moment, he was drawing breath to fuel a caustic tirade, the next he found himself in the grip of unspeakable pain. His anger turned to acidic fire racing through his blood, and his flesh began to stretch and tear.

He was dimly aware of his body changing shape and lifting into the air on wings of flame. Everything was fire, inside and out. Garrik burned, and so did the darkening sky.

Lost to the raging fire, Garrik forgot everything until a quiet song of ice wound its way through the inferno of madness. It was the only thing in the world that wasn’t made of flames, and it riveted his attention as it moved through him, dousing the fire, freezing the madness. Garrik clung to it, knowing the cold was the only thing that could save him.

A breath of icy vapor ghosted across his burning skin, and huge frost-rimed wings wrapped around him, smothering the flames in their dark embrace.

The ice took the pain with it, and when Garrik came back to his senses, he was lying on the cold stone of the watchtower roof. There were arms around him, and a warm, male body pressed against his back. With a start, Garrik realized that he was naked and so was the man who held him.

His body responded with shocking swiftness, and Garrik turned over and pulled the man to him. A different kind of heat surged through him as his mouth moved over warm flesh.

The man in his arms responded to his touch, arching against him and turning his face to meet Garrik in a heated kiss. Garrik’s hands moved to explore slender limbs, narrow hips, and long, tousled hair—

The man tore his mouth away from Garrik’s and let out a needy whimper. Garrik caught a flash of pale eyes in the moonlight and a glint of copper hair.

Ilya…

It was the Wytch Master he held in his arms, the Wytch Master who writhed and moaned at his touch.

Garrik jerked back, shoving Ilya away from him. “What in Aio’s name—?” His voice sounded rough and harsh in his ears.

Ilya stared at him with wide, stunned eyes for a long, frozen moment before turning away and rolling gracefully to his feet. Before Garrik could say a word, Ilya turned on his heel and strode toward the stairs that led down into the watchtower.

NaNo 2014: In Which I Attempt to Warp Space and Time

Since I started this blog a couple of years ago, I've gone from having absolutely no one in my life who writes, to having a huge on-line community of M/M writers that I hang out with, get inspiration and advice from, and generally have a good time with.

These guys are awesome, and when a bunch of them started getting excited about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) I started thinking about it. I might have even mentioned that it looked like it would be fun, but I have a ton of Family Stuff to deal with later this month, and I didn't think I could manage it.

Then I started thinking about how I have all my releases planned for 2015 except there's this big hole in the summer labelled Still To Be Written Fantasy Novel.

Next thing I knew, I was all signed up.

So this will be the month when I shall attempt to bend the laws of physics to my will, warping space and time in such a way that I create a little bubble of writing time that's all my own.

50K in a month?

No sweat.

The project is tentatively titled "Leythe-Blade", and it will be another story that fits into the tapestry I've started weaving in Human Frailties, Human Strengths, and Human Choices.

Here's a brief description:

Sasha is a healer with dreams of being a warrior. When he takes up his grandmother's sword in order to defend his Clan from attack, he gets far more than he bargained for. The sword--Ryka--is a leythe-blade, a magical weapon with the power to send gentle Sasha into a ruthless, killing frenzy. When the berserker rage subsides, Sasha finds himself the sole survivor of the attack.

A healer with blood on his hands does not deserve to live, and all Sasha wants to do is crawl away and die. Ryka has other ideas; Sasha is now her bond-mate, and she will do whatever it takes to keep him alive.

Lukas is a mercenary soldier, charged with protecting his commander’s younger brother on a journey through the Middle Kingdoms. When Lukas and Gwydion find Sasha alone and in agony, Gwydion's prophetic visions tell him that Sasha's survival is vital to the future. Gwydion's visions are seldom wrong, so Lukas turns his mind to helping Sasha find meaning in the tattered remains of his life.

But the last thing the shattered young healer wants is a reason to live, and the last thing Lukas expects is to become Sasha's reason to live.

If all goes well, you can look for it sometime in the summer. Now, I'm off to down a pot of coffee and get on with this time-warping thing. Can't be that hard. They do it on Star Trek all the time.

Gremlin's Last Run is Live!

For those of you who have been patiently waiting, Gremlin's Last Run, Book 2 in my M/M sci-fi series, Guardians of the Pattern, is now available at at Amazon, All Romance, and Smashwords (and will soon be available at other retailers).

This book is 100,000 words of sci fi adventure and romance, much of it taking place aboard a small freighter out in the deep dark of interstellar space.

Here's the book description:

Rhys Tyler, captain of the Gremlin, is no stranger to living on the edge: the edge of solvent; the edge of legal; the edge of sane.

An empath so sensitive that he cannot bear human touch, Rhys makes his living hauling cargo through the deep dark, the interstellar emptiness between populated star systems. And if keeping his aging freighter in working order means resorting to smuggling, well, a man does what he has to in order to survive.

Alek McKinnon is a Federation agent in trouble. Everything that could have gone wrong with his latest mission has. He's been ambushed, kidnapped, imprisoned, and forced to participate in an illegal experiment that has crippled his psi and left him bonded to an ancient artifact that has already proved itself deadly.

When Alek stows away aboard the Gremlin, all he's looking for is a way home so he can report to his superiors. He's not expecting to find a psion in desperate need of training. And he's sure as hell not expecting to fall in love.