My Name Is A'yen 99 cent sale!

I'm running my very first 99 cent sale for My Name Is A'yen. The dates are 5/1 through 5/10. It's to celebrate the release of #3, To Save A Life.

Sale price is available at these stores:

Kindle
Nook
Kobo
iBooks
All Romance Ebooks
Coffee Time Romance

I want more books available before I start playing with sales on Google Play.

They've taken everything from him. Except his name.

The Loks Mé have been slaves for so long, freedom is a distant myth A'yen Mesu no longer believes. A year in holding, because of his master's murder, has sucked the life from him. Archaeologist Farran Hart buys him to protect her on an expedition to the Rim, the last unexplored quadrant.

Farran believes the Loks Mé once lived on the Rim and is determined to prove it. And win A'yen's trust. But she's a breeder's daughter and can't be trusted.

Hidden rooms, information caches, and messages from a long-dead king change A'yen's mind about her importance. When she's threatened, he offers himself in exchange, and lands on the Breeders Association's radar. The truth must be told. Even if it costs him his heart.

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Cover Reveal: Bound To You by AR DeClerck

I'm participating in the cover reveal for AR DeClerck's next science fiction romance, Bound To You. I was one of the beta readers for the first draft, and it is one awesome ride! The cover perfectly captures my mental images of Jacks and Lia.

Here's the blurb for it.

Jackson Baine is a man with a gift, and he has never had a problem with selling it to the highest bidder. His newest job is with one of the biggest terraforming companies in the universe, and the money he stands to make will allow him and his crew to retire on any planet in any galaxy they choose. His biggest problem: Ferrell Terraforming has assigned him a company liason to see to his needs and protect their interests. But that’s not his only problem. Lia Bernardi is smart, beautiful and strong, and she entices Jacks in a way no other woman ever has. She is a distraction he cannot afford on the surface. 

Anatolia Bernardi is ready to climb the corporate ladder, get out from under her egotistical boss, and impress her overbearing father. All she has to do is turn one dead, empty planet into an oasis. Her company says Jacks Baine is the key, and it’s her job to make sure he’s productive and happy. Both of which, she soon learns, are harder than she’d thought they’d be. For some reason Jacks can get under her skin and break down every wall she’s constructed between herself and the world. 

On the surface of a long-dead planet Jacks and Lia will be forced to face the startling realization that the past never really goes away.

The book releases 4/24/15. You can preorder it at Amazon.

AR DeClerck lives in the Quad Cities, IL. She is a wife and mother of two daughters. She has two dogs and a cat, and always has her nose in a book. She’s either reading one, or writing one. She writes romance in many sub-genres, and has always had a soft spot for sci-fi romance. She credits her love of reading and writing to her mother, who always keeps a book handy.

Find AR on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

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I Was Married To Christian Grey

I am a domestic abuse survivor. Let me share with you what it was like.

First off, my ex orchestrated the most massive lie I've ever seen, and convinced my entire family (including extended and grandparents) that he was the opposite of what he turned out to be. He was a narcissist, abusive, manipulative, and controlling. All of which he hid before we got married.

He was laid off the week of our wedding, and ended up taking a job on the other end of the country about six months later. At first, I thought part of what was going on was the stress of a man not having a job and being able to support his family. I was ignored, and increasingly felt like I was just there for him to have sex with. And when we did have sex, he didn't give a rat's ass about whether or not I enjoyed it or whether I even finished. It was all about him, and once he had what he wanted he was done.

He didn't listen to me. Didn't care about my opinion or how I felt about things. I was constantly told to shut up, that I was stupid, and had no idea what I was talking about. I was even told one day that when I married him I ceased to be American. (He was an immigrant, and I'm not naming the country so don't ask.) He threatened multiple times to hit me, but never followed through because I would stand there and stare him down. He didn't know what to do with that reaction and it would throw him off.

I was wrong about things getting better when he had a job. When he landed the new job, things got worse. He began controlling every penny I was allowed to spend, making me account for it, chewing me out when I spent more than $20 on groceries for three weeks. On Long Island! He also refused to put me on any of his accounts, refused to open a new checking account in the state we lived in, and lied to me over and over and over about where he was and what he was doing.

He left for the new job a week before me, and I followed by driving since I had my cat. My parents came with me. On the final day, when we hit the New Jersey state line, it took everything I had not to turn around and drive back to Louisiana right that second. The closer we got to Long Island, the more I panicked. At that point, no one really believed me about how bad things were and I was starting to wonder if I was imagining some of what was happening or misreading how he was acting.

Once my parents left, he arranged things where I had no vehicle. He threatened to kill my cat. He almost broke my arm the same day he threatened to kill my cat, and that's when I called the cops. I left for a week, then went back and tried one more time to make things work. During that week apart we were supposed to move from on-site housing at his job to our own apartment.

He made the move by himself. When my parents arrived on Long Island to talk to him, it is only by the grace of God that my dad didn't kill him on the spot. And my dad told my ex that to his face! In the process of taking our things out of storage, my ex had shown so little regard for the things that were important to me that I kept finding my treasures broken and shattered in the boxes.

When I found a pen box with my favorite Ernest Hemingway quote on it, that my parents had given me as encouragement to keep writing, shattered beyond repair, I lost it. Had a total breakdown in my mom's arms. Which set her to crying, which set my dad to crying. I can count on one hand the times I've seen my dad cry, and that day was one of them.

Things got worse. My ex kept cancelling the Internet installation. He continued to leave me without a vehicle. My parents bought me a $400 Android phone for two reasons. One, because he refused to install Internet. Two, so they could file a theft report if and when he took the phone away from me. I had the county domestic violence hotline on speed dial in my phone.

My sister came up to see me a week after my parents left. My ex showed his worst side yet, scared my sister spitless, scared me spitless, and I shut down. I couldn't think to save my life. She called our mom sobbing saying if she didn't get me out of there he was going to kill me. And she was right.

So we packed my treasures up while he was at work, put them in storage so he couldn't destroy them, my sister called her BFF and had her find us a hotel by LaGuardia, and my sister got me the heck out of there. When I called to tell him where his car was, I ended up hanging up on him because he was yelling and screaming at me and telling me to get my ass back up there.

That man left soul deep scars on me. It's been five years since I left him, and four since I've had to hear his voice. I still start to panic when I see someone who looks like him, or hear someone who sounds like him. I know it's not him, because he's still in New York. But it doesn't stop the panic. I've cut all ties online with his family and friends, and if any of them ever try to contact me I'll probably file a police report.

My cat had nightmares because of him, and it was two years after leaving before she'd let strangers so much as see her. I had nightmares for months after leaving, even though I was safe at home with my parents and 1400 miles away from my ex. I'd wake up terrified he was coming for me. I have no desire to have any kind of relationship with a man. I don't want one getting that close to me again.

My issue with Fifty Shades of Grey is not the BDSM portrayed in them (badly portrayed, the BDSM community has been quite vocal in their disagreement with how the lifestyle is portrayed in these books). My issue is with Christian Grey and the message Ms. James is sending women. She's telling women that it's okay for men like Grey to treat you like shit, to isolate you and manipulate you and control you. Why? Because they say they love you, and when they apologize everything is hunky-dory again. Even though the behavior never changes. Ms. James has bought the lie, and she's told millions of women it's okay to buy the lie.

IT IS NEVER OKAY!!!! NEVER!! Women are to be cherished and protected. Not abused and isolated.

When you're with a man like Christian Grey, you begin to doubt yourself. You begin to wonder if you're imagining things to be worse than they are. You start living your life in a way to minimize setting him off. You feel like you're going crazy. Even your family has a hard time believing everything that's going on. Mine did, until they saw it with their own eyes.

Men like Grey have destroyed millions of women and left us with scars no one can see. And it's these invisible ones that hurt the most and take the longest to heal. My scars are deep, and they still hurt. They will likely hurt for the rest of my life.

Christian Grey is not sexy, or a hero. He is an abuser who belongs in prison.

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Restless In Peaceville is out in print!

Now available in print!

Blurb:

Welcome to Peaceville, population 2067 and rising...from the grave...

Luke Chester has had enough. He’s the school geek, the girls laugh at him, he’s lost his dead-end job at the pizza place, and in the midst of the world’s messiest divorce his parents don’t even know he exists. An overdose of his mom’s tranquilizers and a stomach full of whiskey should solve all his problems...

But they don’t. Instead, Luke finds himself booted out of the afterlife for not dying a natural death, with nowhere to go but back to his recently vacated corpse and reality. How the hell is he going to pass for one of the living without someone trying to blow his brains out for being one of the undead?

And it just gets worse. He’s got to fight his own desperate craving to consume the living, evade the weird supernatural hunter who’s having a field day with the new undeads rising, and there’s this creepy black shadow following him around. Add to that the distraction of female fellow undead Annabelle burning to avenge her own murder, and clearly there’s no rest for the wicked. Jeez, all he wanted to do was R.I.P.

Restless In Peaceville is a young adult zombie story with a twist, set in a Louisiana that never was and released by Lycaon Press on the 20th August, 2014. Add it to your Goodreads shelf HERE. Sign up to my no-spam newsletter HERE to stay up to date with releases, cover reveals, sales and giveaways for all my titles and more.

Suggested tags: zombies, paranormal, YA, angels, redemption, teen fiction, revenge, romance, afterlife, Louisiana

Lycaon Press | Bookstrand | All Romance eBooks | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords |

 Web page to other links | Print format

Excerpt:

A creak is all the warning I'm given before the floor gives way and I plummet through the rotten woodwork like a kingfisher diving through the water. I can't see a thing for dust and chunks of wood, but I know I've gone through the ground floor of the house when I break through a second layer of wood and hit earth. Damn, how long will this body hold up if I keep crashing like this?

I lever myself up, and find my head just above ground floor level while more dust and splinters shower down around me. I turn, looking for some way to pull myself back up...and find myself being stared at by three kids.

Oh, shit. For a moment we all just gaze at each other, no one sure what to do or who's going to do it first. Then one of the boys, maybe eight or nine and his mouth hanging open points at me and screams, "Zombie!"

What else can I do? I yank myself out of the hole and lurch at him, moaning fit to scare them to death. They don't hesitate. Each of them competing for the most piercing holler, they scarper out of the house so fast I expect to see scorch marks from the acceleration. I laugh. Seriously, it's the funniest thing I've seen since I died. Maybe I could get to enjoy this.


Bio:

After spending twelve years working as an Analytical Chemist in a Metals and Minerals laboratory, Pippa Jay is now a stay-at-home mum who writes scifi and the supernatural. Somewhere along the way a touch of romance crept into her work and refused to leave. In between torturing her plethora of characters, she spends the odd free moment playing guitar very badly, punishing herself with freestyle street dance, and studying the Dark Side of the Force. Although happily settled in the historical town of Colchester in the UK with her husband of 21 years and three little monsters, she continues to roam the rest of the Universe in her head.

Pippa Jay is a dedicated member of the Science Fiction Romance Brigade, blogging at Spacefreighters Lounge, Adventures in Scifi, and Romancing the Genres. Her works include YA and adult stories crossing a multitude of subgenres from scifi to the paranormal, often with romance, and she’s one of eight authors included in a science fiction romance anthology—Tales from the SFR Brigade. She’s also a double SFR Galaxy Award winner, been a finalist in the Heart of Denver RWA Aspen Gold Contest (3rd place), the EPIC eBook awards SF category, and the GCC RWA Silken Sands Star Awards (2nd place).

You can stalk her at her website, or at her blog, but without doubt her favorite place to hang around and chat is on Twitter as @pippajaygreen.

Goodreads |  Facebook | Pinterest | Google+ | Wattpad | Amazon page

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Restless In Peaceville

by Pippa Jay

Giveaway ends February 28, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

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Cover reveal for Keir by Pippa Jay

I am beyond excited to be participating in the cover reveal for the re-issue of Keir by Pippa Jay. Keir was the first SFR I read in 2012, and I fell in love with him on the first page. He's everything I want my hero to be: tragic, wounded, and struggling to find a reason to live.

Isn't it awesome? Yes, Keir is blue.Here's the blurb.

A demon waiting to die...

An outcast reviled for his discolored skin and rumors of black magic, Keirlan de Corizi sees no hope for redemption. Imprisoned beneath the palace that was once his home, the legendary 'Blue Demon of Adalucian' waits for death to finally free him of his curse. But salvation comes in an unexpected guise.

A woman determined to save him.

Able to cross space and time with a wave of her hand, Tarquin Secker has spent eternity on a hopeless quest. Drawn by a compulsion she can't explain, she risks her apparent immortality to save Keir, and offers him sanctuary on her home-world, Lyagnius. But Quin has secrets of her own.

When Keir mistakenly unleashes the dormant alien powers within him and earns exile from Lyagnius, Quin chooses to stand by him. Can he master his newfound abilities in time to save Quin from the darkness that seeks to possess her?

Keir is Book One of the Redemption series and part of the Travellers Universe. Previously released by Lyrical Press Inc. 7th May 2012 and a SFR Galaxy Award for SciFi Romance for Best May-December Romance (2012), Aspen Gold Readers Choice Award 3rd place finalist (2013), Readers' Favorite International Book Award finalist(2012), The Kindle Book Review’s Best Indie Book Awards Nominee for Best SciFi/Fantasy (2013).

Please add it to your Goodreads shelf HERE, or sign up HERE for my no-spam newsletter for special previews on cover reveals, new releases, the latest giveaways and discounts, and upcoming news.

Here's Pippa's bio. (And check out the rest of her stuff! She's got a great variety out right now and is one of my favorite authors, in addition to being a friend.)

After spending twelve years working as an Analytical Chemist in a Metals and Minerals laboratory, Pippa Jay is now a stay-at-home mum who writes scifi and the supernatural. Somewhere along the way a touch of romance crept into her work and refused to leave. In between torturing her plethora of characters, she spends the odd free moment playing guitar very badly, punishing herself with freestyle street dance, and studying the Dark Side of the Force. Although happily settled in the historical town of Colchester in the UK with her husband of 21 years and three little monsters, she continues to roam the rest of the Universe in her head.

Pippa Jay is a dedicated member of the Science Fiction Romance Brigade, blogging at 

Spacefreighters Lounge, Adventures in Scifi, and Romancing the Genres. Her works include YA and adult stories crossing a multitude of subgenres from scifi to the paranormal, often with romance, and she’s one of eight authors included in a science fiction romance anthology—Tales from the SFR Brigade. She’s also a double SFR Galaxy Award winner, been a finalist in the Heart of Denver RWA Aspen Gold Contest (3rd place), the EPIC eBook awards, and the GCC RWA Silken Sands Star Awards (2nd place).

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The Importance of Meeting Reader Expectations

Happy New Year, everyone! This is a long post, and probably controversial. You have been warned.

I write science fiction romance. It's a genre with something for everyone and is one of the most diverse romance sub-genres you'll ever encounter. It's fun to explore. But there are a couple of problems I've noticed in my reading the last few months and they're really bugging me.

The first is reader expectation. I'm not just a romance author, I'm a romance reader. As a romance reader I have certain expectations when I pick up a book labeled as romance. The most important one is that the book centers on the hero and heroine's developing romance. They are the main characters and everything else is secondary. Including the other characters. If you remove the romance the entire story falls apart. The romance is the foundation of the novel.

I'm starting to think there's a lack of understanding within SFR about what a romance really is. The one I most recently finished was billed to me as a romance. It wasn't. It was romantic at best. When I pick up something billed as a romance I expect the focus to be on the hero and heroine, watching them fall in love, deal with their issues, and conquer the conflict keeping them apart.

When you tell me something is a romance, and yet I read it and there's no romance, the author has lied to her readers. That's a great way to turn people off on a genre. Especially when it happens several times in a row. As it did with me last month. I've maintained for two years now that in order for SFR to take off we have to get the true romance reader hooked. That's not going to happen if the romance reader's expectations aren't met.

Which brings me to my other point. When the book's description tells me a certain character is the main character, and yet that character is the one with the least POV space, you're once again lying to your potential readers. The one I most recently finished, and that set this post off, was billed to me by the book description as the thing I love best: a hero-centric romance.

That's not what I got. I didn't get a romance. I didn't get significant time in the hero's head. I didn't even get any plot resolution. It ended on a massive, massive, massive cliffhanger. One with no hope these two people who are supposedly in love ever getting back together. I don't buy their romance, because it didn't go through any of the things a romance reader expects. And there's no book two.

We read romances for the intimate moments of watching two people fall in love. It can be fast, it can be slow, it can be love at first sight, it can be soul mates, it can be star-crossed lovers. Doesn't matter. No matter how it happens, there are still things we expect to see.

I only give so many chances. When my expectations as a romance reader aren't met, I'm gone. And I'm not coming back. I'll also tell other romance readers to steer clear of a certain title.

There's nothing wrong with being an SF writer first. But there is something wrong with not taking the time to understand what truly makes a romance work. In order to have a successful SFR that gains mass appeal and hooks romance readers, you can't shortchange the romance reader's expectations.

We romance readers are the bulk of the fiction readership in the United States. For SFR to survive and thrive, you have to take us seriously and meet our expectations.

*Image courtesy of photostock, FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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The King's Mistress is coming!

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for My Name Is A'yen! Proceed with caution.

You have been warned. :)

I'm starting edits on The King's Mistress this next week, and I'm very excited about it. The book is going to be so much better once I'm done with them.

The book has had this title since the very beginning. I started it two days after I finished the first draft of My Name Is A'yen. The title is significant in the A'yen's Legacy universe.

At the end of the first book A'yen finds out his family line, through his father, is the long-lost royal family. It's a cosmic shift in his identity and changes the way he looks at his past. He's not quite sure he's up for it and fears losing who he is in order to be who the Lokmane need him to be.

So he's a future king. And he's owned by his wife, because the Lokmane are still enslaved when the novel opens. Fae is, literally, the king's mistress. This one explores her character a little more, though A'yen is still the one running the show. You'll learn more about her background, what her family is like, and meet her half-brothers.

In this one you also meet Da'Ro, another Me like Na'var in My Name Is A'yen. Ro borders on being an antihero and I had so much fun writing him and doing things I'd never done before. Along the way he stole my heart, and I hope he steals yours too. He's a broken man searching for a reason to live. He's lost everything and everyone who's ever cared about him, and the list was small to begin with. He's hated and feared by other Lokmane, and for good reason. He's the most dangerous kind of Me--a mind-hopper.

What is a mind-hopper? Well, to find that out you'll have to read the book when it comes out.

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My Fall TV schedule

It's been two years since I added a new show to my weekly fall TV schedule. The last new one was Once Upon A Time a few weeks into season two. Thank you, Netflix!

I've been with Criminal Minds since the beginning, and The Big Bang Theory since season two. I watch NCIS: LA off and on. Never miss The Walking Dead or Doctor Who.

This year I've added THREE. Yes, three. Forever, Arrow, and The Flash.

Season one of Arrow I watched on Netflix back in the spring, recorded the re-runs of season two, and jumped in with season three. I'd been hearing good things about it since the beginning, but finally got on board when I found out John Barrowman would be a regular in season three. Since I have a major crush on him it was a no-brainer.

I love the 90's cartoon Justice League Flash, so when I found out CW was spinning him off for his own show I was all OMG! Must watch. Two episodes in and I'm enjoying it.

The final one I started watching for nothing but eye candy reasons. Forever, starring Ioan Gruffudd. My sister and I have had crushes on him since the very first A&E Horatio Hornblower movie in 1998.

There's nothing all that original about Forever. It's light science fiction mixed with crime drama. Ioan's character, Dr. Henry Morgan, died one night about 200 years ago and came back to life. Every time he dies he comes back and he's trying to figure out why. He's a medical examiner in New York City right now, but he's been every kind of medical doctor one can imagine. Including working in a tuberculosis sanitorium at the turn of the century.

What I love about the show is the sense of hope in it. And the wonderful, deep, rich characters. Every episode is infused with hope and Henry learning how to live again. He's been obsessed with death for so long, and lost so many friends, he has a tendency to only see the negative.

Another cool thing is he's been in New York City before, at least three times. In the 1880's, 1920's, and 1950's. So far in every episode there's been some kind of flashback thread to NYC in one of his previous times there. There's also a running thread with something having happened to a woman he met during WW2, married, and she seems to have disappeared at some point.

Unfortunately, I don't have high hopes of it lasting more than a season. If we're lucky to get that much. Because it's so full of hope. Which is sad, because the world we live in needs more hope.

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