Release day is a big deal for a writer. I mean, think about it. We work YEARS for this. Seriously. Today is particularly special because I have not one, but TWO, shiny brand new books out.
The Hunter is my cowboy steampunk from Zebra, and more or less what would happen if you mashed the television show Supernatural together with Wild Wild West and added a dollop of Indiana Jones. There’s action, adventure, supernatural nasties, danger, and romance.
The idea for the three brothers, all named after their father’s favorite guns, actually popped into my brain in 1998, when I was contemplating writing an entire linked family series. Winchester, Remington and Colt were the American cousins in the family. I knew the youngest, Colt, was an outlaw bent on being just like his outlaw father, while the oldest, Winchester was a law man determined to be the opposite of dear old dad and a law man. The middle brother, Remington, like so many middle kids, wasn’t like either one of his brothers and is an attorney, able to dabble on both sides of the law.
What I didn’t know about these guys for a long time was what held them together. It wasn’t until I started writing paranormals, that I realized why the idea had been put on the back shelf of my brain for so long, waiting for that little magical key to unlock the story for me. I realized they were paranormal Hunters. These brothers were so different, and yet they shared a common goal, a common history – that of being raised in the ways of the Legion of Hunters, protecting people from monsters they didn’t even know were real. Things like demons, vampires, werewolves, dark fae, ghosts, skinwalkers, and shapeshifters.
But having roots in romance meant that each brother was going to have to come up against an equally difficult opponent. One he would be attracted to and yet honor-bound to kill. So each brother got a Darkin to deal with. For Colt, who’s very much a ladies’ man, it was only fair I give him a succubus to deal with – the firey Lillith (Lilly) Arliss. Only Lilly isn’t like any demon he’s come up against and could be stone-cold about. She’s got a desire to become human again. If she helps him recover his father’s missing piece of the Book of Legend, she wants him to free her from being a demon. But there’s a high price. Higher than either of them anticipate.
My story Shadowlander is really a novella, not a novel, which is why it’s shorter. It’s the start of my Shadow Sisters series for Entangled Publishing. I guess it’s rather fitting that while I have the brothers duking it out in the old west, I have the sisters struggling in contemporary times to keep the dark fae only they can see, from invading our world.
Three rules have governed the O’Connell sisters since the day they were born:
One:Â Don’t let the fae know you can see them.
Two:Â Don’t talk to the fae.
Three: Never, ever follow the fae.
The series starts out with Catherine (Cate) O’Connell, the eldest sister being forced to break all the sacred O’Connell family rules in order to try and save her best friend who’s been abducted through the rift into the fae world.
She plans on using the help of a fae who’s been following her since she was 16, named Rook. But once Rook finds out she’s what’s know as a Seer in his realm, his plans to take her to the fae world as a war prize for Midsummer’s Eve take a whole new turn. As a Seer, Cate could change the tide in their upcoming war with our world.
I had a lot of fun developing such different worlds for each series and they’ll keep growing as I go along. But for now I need to celebrate. There’s very few times of celebration between a whole lot of work when it comes to writing. So Happy Birthday my books!
