Browsing Tag

carina press

Main, Rebels of Adalonia

Main angelahighland.com site back online; also, Rebels on sale!

Our power came back a short while ago, so that means my web server is back up again! And THAT means angelahighland.com is once more reachable.

And I said this over on the post I put up on angelahighland.info, but for those of you who didn’t see me post it there, or see my last post on Dreamwidth: the Rebels of Adalonia books are currently ON SALE for 99 cents each right now!

Since sale prices on the Rebels books are outside my control, I will NOT know when this price stops being active. So if you don’t already have these ebooks of mine, now is a real good time to get them. Or tell a friend if you know somebody who you think might like my writing! Please do spread the word, I need all the word of mouth I can get. Particularly since right now I don’t have a day job. Thank you in advance!

The Rebels books are available on all major ebook platforms, as well as directly from Harlequin, Carina Press’s parent company. All the links to buy the books are on the official Valor of the Healer, Vengeance of the Hunter, and Victory of the Hawk pages.

And do remember: the Rebels books are NOT standalone novels. You DO need to read all three of them for the complete story. But at 99 cents a pop, that’s still cheaper than most paperbacks!

Questions? Let me know!

Carina Press

New official Carina Press URLs for the Rebels books!

Carina Press has overhauled its site and updated to a new ecomm system, which means that my three Rebels of Adalonia books now have new URLs on their site. Those URLs are as follows!

Valor of the Healer

Vengeance of the Hunter

Victory of the Hawk

All of these pages are linking off to the other vendors where you can buy the books, including Amazon, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, and Google Play, in the interests of making it easier to find the book wherever you’d like to buy it.

These official URLs have been accordingly updated on the Valor of the Healer, Vengeance of the Hunter, and Victory of the Hawk pages here on my site, as well as on the Rebels of Adalonia page.

So if you happen to have the books on Carina’s site bookmarked, please update your bookmarks accordingly. Thanks all!

Boosting the Signal

Boosting the Signal: Ether & Elephants, by Cindy Spencer Pape

I’ve featured fellow Carina author Cindy Spencer Pape on Boosting the Signal before, with her book Dragons & Dirigibles. I’m thrilled to feature her again today, with the latest installment of the Gaslight Chronicles, Ether & Elephants! And don’t forget–if you like the sound of this book, Carina has a 40% off site-wide sale going on till Monday, so you can get this book as part of that sale! Her character for this piece is Thomas Devere, and his goal is simple: win back the love he’s lost, and become a proper father for the child who’s most likely his son. Take it away, Cindy!

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Ether and Elephants

Ether and Elephants

My life was simple when I was a kid. Pick a few pockets, dodge a few coppers, maybe cheat the occasional sailor in a game of cards. Whatever it took to find a little food and a place to get off the streets at night, since the slums of London were rife with vampyres in those days. I teamed up with some other street rats, we learned to kill the vampyres, we got a permanent room over a tea shop, and life was pretty good. Then when I was fifteen, it all went crazy. We got ourselves adopted by one of the best monster-hunters in England. I found out I wasn’t a bastard at all, but the legitimate heir of a bloody baronet! In just one day we were off the streets of Wapping and into a St. James mansion. Even then, I knew, and my new mum knew, that I was in love with Nell, the younger girl in our crew. So they didn’t legally adopt me. Someday, Nell and I would be married.

That was before I did something so devastatingly stupid that it destroyed everything. In university, for a while, I let my little head do the thinking, and wound up married to a barmaid who claimed I’d gotten her pregnant. Day after the wedding she disappeared, and I never heard from her or the child again. It didn’t matter though. I was married, so Nell and I were doomed. She took a job teaching music to blind children, and I did my best to avoid her as much as possible.

Then, Fate intervened. One of Nell’s students went missing—a boy with supernatural gifts, not unlike my own. As soon as I began to investigate, I knew there was a good chance that young Charlie was my missing son. Finding him and his mother became the sole focus of my life.

Now, we’ve discovered hints that I might not be legally married after all. That Charlie, who may or may not be my son, might be better off if I did have the marriage ruled invalid and simply claimed him as my son, despite the stigma of illegitimacy. His mother appears to be involved with an old enemy of ours—an Alchemist who uses children to test his chemical and magical potions.

So I might be free to marry Nell, but now she wants nothing to do with me. And it looks like we’re heading to India. It’s a three-day airship ride. Her natural father might be waiting on the other end, as we hunt a criminal and a little boy through a foreign land. Anything could happen. Anything at all.

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Boosting the Signal

Boosting the Signal: Turning It On, by Elizabeth Harmon

As I’ve posted earlier today, it’s a VERY good day thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision about same-sex marriage. However, let it not be said that opposite-sex relationships don’t get celebrated in these parts either! Because today I bring you another contemporary romance from fellow Carina author Elizabeth Harmon, who wants you to know about her new release in her Red Hot Russians series. And her hero–Vlad the Bad! Who has a goal that may surprise you, given that he’s a stripper, and it’s certainly surprising people in the story! I gotta say, though: way to go Vlad!

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Turning It On

Turning It On

Looks can be deceiving, especially when you’re a contestant on TV’s sexiest reality show.

In Turning It On, (Red Hot Russians #2), my new Carina Press release, due out June 29, shy book editor Hannah Levinson tries to keep her fame-hungry fiancé from the clutches of a scheming dental hygienist, with the help of an unlikely ally, sexy Russian male stripper, Vlad the Bad.

When it’s impossible to tell what’s real and what’s an illusion, can Hannah trust that there’s more to Vlad than meets the eye?

Read on, as Vlad reveals himself to Boosting The Signal….

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Ei, pretty lady. That’s right…you. Don’t be shy. I see how you look at me. That’s okay, I’m used to it. If I minded, wouldn’t be standing here without a shirt, wearing skin-tight jeans made to tear right off my body. I wouldn’t spend hours in gym, or on beach, so I could look this way. I’m not boasting, it’s just fact. When you make your living as I do, looking good is part of the job.

My name is Vladimir Shustov, but here in Miami, most people know me as Vlad the Bad. Maybe you’ve seen me dance at The Male Room. Nyet? Well, The Male Room is a strip club for women, if you haven’t guessed. I’m one of the top acts. Stella, my boss, says that’s because I know how to make every lady think I dance only for her.

Some women who come in may not have a man pay attention to them in real life, so when they are here, I like to make them feel good. They pay me very well, and for a guy who grew up with nothing, and came to this country with nothing, that is important. But is not the only reason I do it. It’s something I can give to another person, even for just a little while. May not mean much, but right now, is all I have.

Back in Russia, I was once an ice dancer. My partner and I even won some medals and we might have had a chance to compete at Winter Games, until we took a bad fall. She broke her hip and decided she didn’t want to skate any more. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, only that I needed to make a lot of money. Stripping was a way to do that.

But when you’re a stripper, people decide who you are without ever bothering to know you. People think I’m stupid, and that all I care about is getting laid. Or getting paid. And yes, most people assume I do one to get the other. I don’t. I won’t lie and say I have no regrets, but it is not who I am, nor is it all I want to be.

What I really want…is to be a writer.

I can tell you’re surprised. Most people are. And it’s true…because I trained as figure skater, my education was miss or hit, as Americans often say. Science I liked, but at math, I was no good. History? What about it? Living in Russia in 1990s and 2000s was like living in history as one nation died and a new one took over. Everyone for themselves…that was what my mother always said. With so many questions about future, who cared about past?

But reading I always loved, and did whenever I had a chance. My favorite stories were those set in worlds even darker and scarier than mine. Compared to robots, demons and flesh-eating aliens, what does it matter if your mother and her boyfriend are in deep with Russkaya Mafiya? Whenever I wasn’t skating, I was often at library, escaping from home, escaping from everything. Before long, I wasn’t content only to read, I began to write.

So far I’ve written one novel and started a second one, called The Flesh Zone. It’s coming of age story about hard working immigrant who comes to United States and is paid fortune to take off his clothes. Then monsters attack his city. I try to do what they say…write what you know. Except for the monsters.

Most people would say two books is good, especially since I’m only twenty-five. Why rush, they say.

Because I know I can only dance for so long, and after, my future doesn’t look so bright. You see, the longer you stay in this life…the life that is lived mostly in the dark…the harder it is to get out. Just ask my mother. She never got out at all.

More than anything, I don’t want to end up that way. Maybe what I really want isn’t simply to be a writer…it is to be someone good and honorable. I haven’t known many people like that, but there have been a few. Not in this life, but before, when I skated. My Uncle Ivan, for one.

What would mean the most is to live a life of which I’m not ashamed…and to be loved by a woman who isn’t ashamed of me. I know, sounds crazy, to think that way. But to me, dreams are like stories. They cost nothing and anybody can have one.

Even a guy called Vlad the Bad.

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Boosting the Signal

Boosting the Signal: Chaos Station, by Jenn Burke and Kelly Jensen

One of the reasons I signed on with Carina Press for the Rebels of Adalonia trilogy was their willingness to publish same-sex fiction. Bonus if it’s SF–like Chaos Station, the new release by author team Jenn Burke and Kelly Jensen! Even more bonus when a character named Julian is involved. As y’all know, I do like me some Julians! But Jenn and Kelly’s Julian is rather more of a clotheshound than mine. I can hear Nine-fingered Rab coveting his wardrobe now. And as for what this Julian wants, he definitely appears to be a man with acquisition on his mind.

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Chaos Station

Chaos Station

Julian pulled at his shirt cuffs until an even centimeter of fabric peeked out on either side. The satiny gold offset the blue of his suit perfectly. It was a very particular blue—like the light captured within an arc of electricity. The smart fibers embedded in the material added just enough shine. He would stand out in this suit. He would be a commanding presence.

It was a pity the only notice he might attract would be the scruffy crew of that most annoying corvette. What did they call it again? The Chaos? Who in their right mind would christen a ship with anarchy!

Breath whistled between his lips. Julian shut his mouth and adjusted his cuffs again, aware the strain across his shoulders had pulled them askew. Then he tweaked the collar of his shirt to make sure the deep vee aligned with the point of his pendant. He caressed the solid gold cocoon and it warmed beneath his touch. When he let it flop back against his abundant thatch of chest hair, the heat was pleasant against his skin.

He was no uncouth mercenary. He was a man of substance and stature. He would not be bested by a ragtag team of bounty hunters. They couldn’t even dress sensibly. Well, the one… The tall, dark and handsome one. Zander Anatolius. He obviously had taste, but he’d been keeping the wrong company. He did not belong aboard a ship like the Chaos. No, a man of his pedigree had a much greater worth. A much greater value. With those skills and that name…

A slow smile stretched his mouth. Yes. Emma might have seemed like a prize, but she had merely been his entry ticket. And now it was time to cash her in.

He checked his reflection one more time and took a moment to admire what he saw. A man had to dress for success, did he not? What lay beneath might count for something, but when it came to first impressions, surely clothes made the man.

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Boosting the Signal

Boosting the Signal: In the Void, by Sheryl Nantus

Boosting the Signal continues to technically be on hiatus on the grounds that I am frantically trying to pull the last of Victory of the Hawk out of my head. HOWEVER, a few folks have asked me to run pieces for them anyway! And I said sure, as long as they could get me completed pieces without me having to make any tweaks to them.

One of those people is fellow Carina author Sheryl Nantus, who y’all may remember sent me a piece for her Carina release earlier this year, In the Black. Sheryl’s back now, because Book 2 of that same series has released! Folks, I give you In the Void. In this piece, we’ve got one of the crew of the Belle having a sneaky suspicion about the goals our next hero in the series had better be setting for himself. Take it away, Sheryl!

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In the Void

In the Void

Diego! Mon ami! How’s it going…yeah, I know it’s been a while since I got in touch. Been a busy few weeks on the Bonnie Belle but I guess you heard about that. Bad business, crazy business with one of the girls getting murdered.

You got it all? Man, that’s fantastic. Your buddy was cool but I told him I’d rather deal with you direct ’cause we’re buddies. Yeah it was a bit of a lie but he was getting a bit too greedy asking for a tip and between you and me I know he gets enough of a cut. Besides, I like dealing straight-on with my suppliers.

I’ll pass on your condolences to Bianca along with the new curtains. She’s taking it hard but who can blame her? Still life goes on like the Guild wants and we’re turning and burning hard for every landfall with Captain Keller taking us in the black and keeping us safe.

Keller? She’s a damned good captain, better now that she’s gotten a bit o’fun with Marshal LeClair. I know we’re not supposed to know but he keeps coming ’round to inspect the Belle and make sure we’re all fine and ends up in the Captain’s cockpit more often than not, if you get my drift.

It’s good for her and for him and for all of us—well, maybe not Sean. He’s one of the boys, a fine medic and a sweet Irish who’s been around almost as long as Kendra. I think. You know they don’t like to talk about where they been or what they were before signing up to be a Mercy man or a Mercy woman.

He’s got a look about him like when a gear’s been worn down, the edges catching but not quite right—you get what I’m saying? I know it’s tough for everyone out here on the edge but he’s looking a bit more frayed than usual. Sometimes he gets this look and I know he’s not here on the ship and he sure as hell isn’t a Mercy man. He’s gone elsewhere and it’s got to be an awful place from the expression on his face. Then he comes on back to us and makes a joke and tries to hide from the pain.

Can’t blame him for getting tired of being out here. He’s getting older and there’s not a lot of old Mercy men. I know, I know, mature men are better lovers and all that but Sean’s getting to the point where he’s gonna have to figure out what he’s all about without the Belle.

Anyway, thanks for the supplies. I know the Dragons appreciate our business and you know I appreciate you coming out here to meet me. I’ll probably have a bigger list next time—got two cabins empty and I just know the new courtesans are gonna want to redecorate and that’s bad for me and good for you.

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Books, Carina Press

Latest book roundup post

I’ve been reading a lot from the library lately, partly because Dara and I are having to sink a lot of money into rental property renovation, but also partly because it’s super-easy to check out library books on my newer Nook with the Overdrive app. But that said, I’ve made a few recent purchases regardless. Like I do. Here they are!

From Kobo:

  • The Gods of Gotham, Seven for a Secret, and Dust and Shadow, by Lyndsay Faye. These are mysteries, and I grabbed these because of Faye writing an excellent response on CriminalElement.com to the Slate article not long ago about why adults shouldn’t read YA. Faye’s response was pure gold and I resolved that I clearly had to read her books. Doesn’t suck either that Dust and Shadow is a Sherlock Holmes story. I’ve already read The Gods of Gotham as a library checkout, which confirmed that I needed to add Faye to my Buy list.
  • Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie. SF. This one’s been getting a lot of buzz for being on the Hugo ballot, and it was at $1.99, so I thought I’d better grab it while that price was good.
  • A Rogue by Any Other Name, One Good Earl Deservers a Lover, and No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, by Sarah MacLean. These are all historical romances, the first three of MacLean’s four-book series about the owners of a gaming hell in London. The series has been getting some nice buzz since MacLean was interviewed last November on the Dear Bitches Smart Author podcast. And Book 3 of her series is up for a RITA this year. I find the titles kind of twee, but the series itself is fun. Read the first two as library checkouts, and then put MacLean on the Buy list.

Meanwhile, from B&N in ebook form:

  • The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell, by Mira Grant. Because MIRA GRANT, and also because woo, new Newsflesh story! If you haven’t seen Grant/McGuire’s own warning about this, do NOT read the summaries you may see of this novella on Goodreads or on any pages giving the book publicity. There’s a spoiler in ’em. Just go straight to the novella. Which is, as per usual, Grant’s excellent brand of zombie-ridden grim.
  • The Lady Astronaut of Mars, by Mary Robinette Kowal. I’d already read this but when Tor put it out for ebook purchase, I decided I needed to grab it. It’s a novelette up for a Hugo this year, and it’s a bittersweet little story about an aging astronaut having to choose between one last mission in space–and remaining at the side of her dying husband.

From B&N in print:

  • Shaman Rises, by C.E. Murphy. The final Walker Papers novel! Already bought in ebook, but this is me getting it in print. Because KIT.
  • The Jedi Doth Return, by Ian Doescher. Finishing up Doescher’s delightful adaptations of the original Star Wars trilogy into Shakespeare-style plays. Can’t wait to giggle at this one. 😀

And last but not least, from Carina in ebook:

  • Trancehack and Witchlight, by Sonya Clark. Sonya Clark is one of my fellow members of the Here Be Magic blog, and these are her first two books with Carina. They’re paranormal romances, but set in a futuristic timeframe, and they sound fun. Plus, I wanted to grab Trancehack while it was still on sale for 99 cents. Which ends TODAY, so if you think you might want to check this book out yourself, grab it fast before the price goes back up!
  • An Inconvenient Kiss, by Caroline Kimberly. Historical romance. Grabbed this one because the plot blurb sounds interesting, and the cover is beautiful. I approve of this recent trend in romance covers of the heroines in beautiful gowns.

100 for the year.