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Don’t Peek

THE NEW BLACK CARBON SERIES

No Spoiling here — READ ON

WHERE DID THE STORY COME FROM?

I had a dream when I was house hunting for my very first home in Los Angeles. In the dream we were in an adorable white stucco neighborhood, checking out the park in the middle. There were white gravel walkways and in the middle was a post with a bell at the top. A woman came out and rang the bell, and slowly everyone disappeared.

It was just my husband and me and our kids and our real estate agent–who shrugged at us. Then the sun set …. and these huge hell-dogs came running across the park toward us.

I woke up. But that has been rolling around in my head for years. YEARS. It’s scientifically just this side of plausible. And the world I’m now inhabiting as I write the new BLACK CARBON series…

CHARACTERS? NAMES?

The main characters are the Mazur family. You’ll meet them in NightShade book #7 – THE CAMELOT GAMBIT. I won’t tell you much more, because I don’t want to spoil that one!

But Nate and Kaya are two physicists who have twins. The twins are their daughter Joule (Joule Lovelace Mazur) … and you can see where they got their kids names. And her brother “Cage” whose real name is Faraday Carson Mazur.

The art is an artist render of me (ha!) as a character in another story that featured the dogs and neighborhood Rowena Heights

UNDER DARK SKIES – The NightShade Forensic FBI Files, #1

WHERE DID THE STORY COME FROM?

I hate werewolves. I hate that they jump and just transform. I really hate when there are sparkles. I hate that the werewolf is a different mass than the man and some fairy must be waiting in the forest to fold their clothing. Their clothing that magically disappeared when they jumped, but now is ready to be folded and waiting.

I spent about 10 years hating on werewolves and trying to figure out how to make one that was scientifically plausible. As in the intro to the first book, there is plenty of science behind other mysterious/supernatural phenomena, but not so much with werewolves. So I thought about it long and hard. When I figured it out, I began writing book one.

COVER

The photo is original art, the slashes clearly alluding to Donovan’s nature which we don’t know when the story starts.

Every now and then I get a review that the book was too dark, went too strange, or whatever. On the one hand, I get that. On the other hand, DUDE, there are slashes on the cover! The title is brooding if not downright menacing. And the intro is all about supernatural science. I’m sorry if you missed ALL THAT. 🙂

WHERE DID THE TITLE COME FROM?

NightShade is of course both a poison and a medicine and is routinely used in spellwork.

Under Dark Skies was compelling—we just liked it.

 

 

Vengeance - Vendetta Trifecta #1

VENGEANCE

A little bit of spoiling here, but if you click the More Spoilers below, you’ll definitely get some secrets.

WHERE DID THE STORY COME FROM?

I saw a movie and thought, “NO. It doesn’t go that way.” So, I fixed it.

Vengeance was the second book I wrote, after Resonance. I sat down and wrote the first section. Then I was stuck. My house (in LA) was circular. I got up, walked a loop around the house and I had it. I had Owen Dunham, from nothing to fully formed (family and all) in one loop around the house. I sat back down and kept writing.

CHARACTERS? NAMES?

Sin is probably pretty obvious, though to me she was Cynthia first. I don’t know where the name Cynthia came from. That led to “Sin” and Lee’s misunderstanding of her name.

“Lee” is a word which literally means “shelter from a storm.” And that’s what he is to her. “Owen” is yet another name that means “warrior” and “Dunham” is because he was originally “Dunhill” after the cigarette. No, I don’t and have never smoked. But I had a friend who smoked Dunhills. I decided I couldn’t name him after a cigarette.

I wanted Owen to be sympathetic—not the bad FBI guy. He also couldn’t be either psychic or idiotic (the two “Fed” tropes I see far too often) but he had to be their antagonist.

MORE SPOILERS