This is your reminder that there are only two days (today and tomorrow) left to get your name in over on Goodreads to be entered into a drawing for one of two signed copies of Through Shade and Shadow!
And now through 2/15, signed copies of both Through Shade and Shadow and Forever are on sale for $10 each. Buy both and I’ll throw in a copy of my poetry book!
Visit my Facebook shop to order!
Hope your Thursday is filled with Love and Laughter and Kindness!
Today is the release date for Through Shade and Shadow!! It is now available in both paperback and kindle!
Also, today is the day that my Goodreads Giveaway is open to enter. Sign up between now and midnight on the 10th of February for your chance at one of two signed books I’m giving away.
And, NEW, if you want to order an autographed copy from me, you can now do that on my facebook author’s page! All of my current works are listed, and there’s even an option to bundle all three for a discount.
I am very excited to share this book with you and rest assured I am hard at work on the sequel so hopefully you won’t have to wait too long.
Once you’ve read it, I hope you will consider leaving a review, whether on Amazon (US, UK, CA, AU, etc) or Goodreads. Reviews are important in getting the book in front of more people.
As always, thanks for reading. And maybe Saturday I’ll open up an Ask Me Anything kind of post. I love hearing from you!
To coincide with the formal release date on February 1, I have set up a Goodreads giveaway. It opens for entry on 2/1 and closes on 2/10. There are 2 signed books up for grabs this time around.
You can find the details and enter (on 2/1 or after) here: Goodreads Giveaway!
And while I’m linking you to things, I recently did character interviews for both Mason and Alaric on fellow author J.M Northrup’s blog:
And a while back I did an interview for her as well, around the time I released Forever. You can read that here: Interview by J.M. Northrup. That was a lot of fun too. I hope I get to do more of these.
Speaking of which, my most recent interview was with fellow author Matthew Snee. Interview by Matthew Snee.
I hope this Saturday finds you warm and in the company of love.
We’re getting closer to the release date of February 1st, and you can pre-order your Kindle version of Through Shade and Shadow right now. You can also get a paperback from Amazon right now. If you have Amazon Prime, you could be reading it this weekend!
I find it a little amusing that I don’t even have my first copy of it (I should have it soon) and there are people who have purchased it and are reading it.
I wanted to do a local book launch party in February, but haven’t been able to secure a location yet. I will, however, have a table at the Bay Area Book Fair in June in Berkeley. For my Pagan fans, I will be at Pantheacon in San Jose February 17-20 and I’ll likely have copies on me, so if you see me and want one, please ask.
If you want a signed copy and aren’t local, I am working on getting a system set up to order directly from this site. I hope to have it up and functional by the time I get my box of books.
I also have a giveaway set up on Goodreads. It will open on the first of February.
And if you want to chat, come by my facebook page or hit up my Goodreads inbox.
Sahara is the first female character I’m introducing, she is also the first Shifter. Sahara is a woman in her thirties, with mixed heritage that is Indian and Mexican. She is also a Shifter, and her animal form is a large lioness.
We meet Sahara when Alaric and his friends attempt to liberate her, and two younger women, from Omega Labs, an organization with close ties to the 8th Battalion. While she accepts the hospitality offered, she is wary of the people extending it. Before her capture by the Lab group, she lived a solitary sort of existence for years after the deaths of her immediate family, her mother to cancer, her father to a heart attack.
Sahara is a strong woman, used to doing things her own way, used to letting the cat inside do what it wanted. In fact, during the rescue, Sahara kills a guard, a fact that puts her at odds with at least one of Alaric’s men.
She becomes a reluctant guardian to the teenage sisters that were rescued with her. But once accepting the role, she is a fierce and loyal protector, a role that eventually extends to the people around her, including Alaric and his family.
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The women really come to the fore in book 2, where we will learn more about Sahara, and meet Raven, Zero and others who will play important parts in what is to come.
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BUT, I also have news. The paperback edition of Through Shade and Shadow is available now and the Kindle version is available for preorder.
You may have noticed some redecorating has happened!
The new book has a cover, as you can see. Right now everything is getting set up for pre-orders and I’ll post to let you know when that happens.
In the meantime, let me know what you think of the cover and if you are a book reviewer and want to get a digit ARC to review prior to the release, hit me up and I’ll get you the file.
Bryan Wagner is a part of Alaric’s clan, a close friend of Alaric’s father. He has been a part of Alaric’s life for a long time. As the story opens, Bryan is in his late thirties and with Alaric serves as one of Anson Lambrecht’s Keepers.
Bryan was raised with more formal training than many in the clan and he has good control of his gifts. He’s a strong reader, is good with projecting glamors to make things and people appear to different and he can project ideas/thoughts into unprotected minds. These things come in handy when you’re running from someone.
Physically, Bryan is tall, with broad shoulders and big hands. His skin is tan from hours in the sun, all but a long white scar that runs from his hair line, down over his left eye and onto his cheek. That eye is blind and white.
Bryan sometimes comes across as a bit crass because he doesn’t waste time with niceties he doesn’t mean. He’s bold and he is unafraid to voice the unpopular positions. He is, however, fiercely loyal, first to his clan, then to the clan’s leader, even when he disagrees with a decision that leader has made.
He is not a fan of getting involved in the strife tearing the country apart and he holds very little love for the other tribes, Shades in particular. Bryan was an integral part of the work to bring the scattered clan back together and institute training regimens to strengthen the tribe, though he himself doesn’t really have the patience to be a teacher.
Underlying a lot of the story in the Shades and Shadows universe, is the history of the tribes, most of which has been lost or diluted or re-written. Each tribe has an inherent “gift” that sets them apart, which is ultimately the cause for the division among them.
Human beings, as a rule, are wary of things that are different, and we can turn on those who seem to have something “more” than we have, those with power we can not understand or control. So it comes as no surprise that the tribes turned on one another, sometimes banding together to take on one tribe, sometimes all of them killing each other.
In the fallout, one tribe grew in number faster and spread further. Unlike the other four tribes, their gift wasn’t one of healing or magic or other things we would consider paranormal. Their gift, rather, was to be free of the trappings of those things; free to pursue the life they chose.
Unfortunately, they did not see that as a gift, and over time, persecuted the other tribes into hiding. Thus was the history lost, unless the tribe itself kept their own. With the tribes scattered, even to the point of losing track of their own clans, no one really knows the truth.
Okay, the 8th battalion isn’t an individual character, but throughout Through Shade and Shadow, it acts as one. It isn’t clear from the start if it is merely a name latched onto by disjointed groups that makes it seem like a huge, nationwide organization, or if all of those groups are actually one.
The 8th Battalion is born in the idea of idealized militia rising up to defend what they think is right, their way of life. When Shades are discovered to be real, the 8th Battalion paints them into their canvas of people who are responsible for their pain, alongside people of color, people of other faiths, etc.
There is a certain religiosity involved here. The 8th Battalion hangs their hatred and bigotry on a tree of religion and sets the whole thing on fire.This, of course, buys them support from certain types of people across the country. When their first acts of violence aren’t widely condemned, and in some cases, actively cheered on, they take this as approval for their agenda and their attacks escalate to include murder and bombings.
But, it should be noted that not everyone involved in the 8th Battalion are religious zealots. There is a shadowy leadership behind the whole thing that has only interest in one thing, and they will use this group to gain it.
As an author, one of the things I’m often asked is “how did you think of that” or “where did that idea come from” and to be fair, most of the time I’m not completely sure myself. I get inspired by many, many different things all the time. And that inspiration gets filed away until I need it.
Through Shade and Shadow originated with the idea of the Shade first of all. Anyone who has read my work knows I have a love of the paranormal and a big part of that is vampires. My first published novel was all vampires. I wanted to look at the mythos of blood drinking as a method of killing, but also as a need for living. I also didn’t want to create yet another vampire story.
So I started with blood drinking, but decided that it wouldn’t be the only means of living, I made them dependent on water as well. I kept the whole bit about the sun being deadly, but dialed back the severity. Then I started to think about who I wanted this character to be, what I wanted his abilities to be.
I think I actually chose the healing idea by taking the idea that a vampire could sort of “heal” someone who was dying, by turning them into a vampire and then combined that idea with the whole connection to blood and water as life givers.
That was, essentially, how the Shade was born. The history for them is based largely on what I know of our own history, how anything “other” was feared and shunned, hunted and killed, particularly when in large groups.
As a result, when we first meet Mason, Shades are scarce. So scarce in fact that he’s somewhat surprised to find that he and his grandmother are not actually the last ones on earth.
#shadeandshadow #whatisashade