I Need Some Recs!

Hiiiii guys.

So here we are, last few days of January, kicking off the new year, writing and working and all that lovely stuff...and I decided to do the Goodreads challenge this year. I set my sights on 75 books, which is entirely doable, and then I started going through my TBR shelf and--oh my god. It's huge. Intimidatingly huge. I don't know where to start and nothing is jumping out at me, so I'm kicking the ball at you guys.

I'm looking for recs! Am I looking at M/M stuff? Absolutely, particularly stories with a military aspect or really interesting, non-traumatizing contemporaries. I just read Catch A Ghost, which I feel has kind of become one of those "everybody reads it" books in the genre, and it was...it was good, really well written but at the same time I was like, "Oh my god, can we shoehorn in any more action and insinuation and potential trauma?" Two alpha males battling for supremacy...I'd really like to see a friendly, non-assholish guy fucking take everybody out sometime, y'know? Maybe I'll write that. Beta dude kicks everyone's ass and then hands out ice packs. This doesn't mean I won't be reading the sequel, but I'd like something else in-between.

Aaanyway...interesting contemporaries too, something you really liked but not too much angst. I love Amy Lane too, but I want to reel it in a bit. I'm going to work on a contemporary myself soon, and it's my weakest genre, so...yeah, show me what you like.

Also, I'm reading Of Mice And Men, and I want to read Radical, so honestly, any book you find particularly awesome I'm open to. I want to not do what I always do this year, sticking with paranormal everything.

Soothsayer Ch. 11, Pt. 2

Notes: Okay, so we dive hardcore into more plotty stuff next week, but this is all still relevant. And also, for those who read the below and think to themselves "That's not how people camp," oh yes it is. In my family, tents are for wusses. Even in the winter, we've built snow caves over sleeping in tents. Every summer backpacking trip I've ever taken with my dad, who is a former Army Ranger, we've slept under strategically-tied tarps on sleeping bags and pads. In his older age he's condescended to add an air mattress for the sake of his hips, but the rest of it? Rain or wind or mosquito season, it's plastic tarps. Yep. I like it a lot more than these guys do, though :)


Title: Soothsayer Chapter Eleven, Part Two.

 ***

                Don’t get me wrong. I was not, and had never been, big into the “great outdoors.” My mother might have liked roughing it in a little cabin with unreliable electricity, and I may have spent more than my fair share of time tied up in uncomfortably rural locations, but I’d never enjoyed it. It wasn’t the sort of thing I put up with for enjoyment, it was what happened when there were no other options and I had to suck it up. I figured it would be second nature for Sören, though. After all, he was a freaking landvættir. If getting comfy on the actual land wasn’t a part of that, I didn’t know what was.

                Living in ignorance was way better than finding out the truth.

Soothsayer Ch. 11, Pt. 1

Notes: Happy reunion time! Or something like that. Another chapter that happened rather unexpectedly, I hadn't figured on doing this here but...shit happens. In other news, the preorder page is up for my, and four other awesome authors, Riptide stories. The collection is called Rules To Live By, has a discipline theme--yeah, that's one of the Ds in BDSM, its that kind of story-- and you can read more about it here: http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/rules-to-live-by.

Now, on with the show!


Title: Soothsayer Chapter Eleven, Part One.

***

“My heart is ever at your service.” – William Shakespeare

                I was getting paint on Andre’s seats. He would probably be pissed about that whenever I got this car back to him, but at least it wasn’t bullet holes. Chock that up in the ‘win’ column, I guess. Ha, this was my life, where not being actively shot at with a deadly weapon was the best thing that had happened all day to me. I should’ve probably ditched the car, honestly, gotten a new one just in case they had some way of tracking this one, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. I settled on switching out the license plate at a gas station instead and just kept going.

Oo, I sold a story!

Hi guys!

So, this was a bit of nice news in an otherwise unhappy morning. My story In Memoriam, which I wrote a few months ago and pitched to Dreamspinner, was accepted for publication. So, I'll have a genderbent version of Hades and Persephone available for consumption in July or August! I posted an excerpt of it last month here, if you're curious: http://carizerotica.blogspot.com/2014/12/update-and-new-story-excerpt.html

Now I'm trying to finish my cyberpunk novel for Riptide (I don't know they'll want it but they're my first choice for it), beta-ing my epic fantasy to get it ready to pitch to agents, and working on Soothsayer. Plus a few other short stories as they occur in my brain.

Also, it's my honey's birthday today--Happy Birthday, darlin! You're the only weirdo for me :)

Soothsayer Ch. 10, Pt. 2

Notes: On to the theme park and a lot of questionable decision making, woohoo! We're rolling right along with this story. I estimate we're over halfway at this point, which is kind of nice but kind of sad. So goes the blog. Thanks again to everyone who entered my giveaway, I'm so pleased you played and I'll get to your comments asap! If you won, congrats, if you didn't...well, at least you get free fiction.

PS: I've neither played paintball nor do I speak Icelandic, so I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies.

PPS: My bespoke story winner gave me this amazing picture as a prompt. What could I not do with this? So many options...

Title: Soothsayer Chapter 10, Part 2.

***

“Running away will never make you free.” – Kenny Loggins

  

                You weren’t supposed to bring a firearm into an amusement park. Well, who knows, the rules were probably different in a place like Texas, but in Missouri the prohibition stood. More than that, I wasn’t comfortable carrying and possibly firing a gun in a place where a lot of children were going to be running around. There was disregarding my own safety, and then there was being okay with copious collateral damage, and I wasn’t going to be that. So fine, no gun. It didn’t matter. I just needed to find Sören and get out of here. Hopefully I could snag him as he came off of a rollercoaster and get him out before his brothers even got close.

                Yeah. And how often did things work out for me like that?

New Year's Contest Winners!

Yay, it's time to win!

The entries have been tallied from Twitter, Goodreads, Facebook and the blog. Apparently a lot of people wanted Option #1! Which is awesome, but as there could only be one winner of everything for the year, once that prize was taken I had to pull a few extra random numbers before I got the other gifts claimed. What that means is, there are a few bonus winners who will get one of my published works from 2015. Your choice, as long as it's in e-format. Names are below:

#1, otherwise known as One Of Everything 2015, Booyah goes to: Blaine Arden!

#2, or I've Got A Giant Book And I Want You To Have It: Mell Eight!

#3, also known as Let Me Write For You: Tiffany!

and #4, which is basically Feel Like Letting Me Use Your Brain For A While? is: Alicia Nordwell!

Bonus winners who get one of my 2015 books (your choice) are: Al and Lynette Michelle!


I'll contact you all within the next few days to work things out, or hey, you can contact me. Thank you all so much for entering my contest! 2015 is going to be a great year, I can feel it, and that's in large part thanks to you guys and your support, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you and happy, happy new year.

Soothsayer Ch. 10, Pt. 1

Notes: I sat down to write this today and I thought about what I had planned, then thought, "Oh man, that sounds boring. And if I'm bored readers will be bored. What else can I do?" And then this arc started, and it's going to get crazy in St. Louis, folks. Enjoy part one!

Also, check back on Thursday to find out who wins my giveaway!


Title: Soothsayer Chapter 10, Part One.

***

“Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil’s alphabet—the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.” – Michel de Montaigne

  

We reached St. Louis by early afternoon, and it wasn’t hard to find Six Flags. Just look for the enormous rollercoasters, which I expected I’d be spending some time on. Again, not something I’d done since Vegas. Sören was a bad influence.

He was also incredibly impatient. “I want to go in now.”

Movie Review: Battle of the Five Armies

Sooo...

This weekend I went and saw The Battle of the Five Armies with my husband and some friends. Spoilers below, so stop reading now if you want to maintain blissful ignorance.

I'm what you'd call a casual lover of Tolkien. I've read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I've read the Silmarillion and I've got the Elvish dictionary, but I haven't delved too deeply into all of the extra work that he wrote. I loved the first three movies, was super excited by the development of The Hobbit and its cast, then saw the first one and...

Well. Yeah. Not...fantastic. I'm not a stickler for source material, god no, but...really? Okay, so some of the choices made were distracting, particularly the development of the love triangle. It's not that I don't like Tauriel, I think it's generally nice to add kickass women to movies that are 99% men beating on each other, but I think the love triangle was kind of ridiculous. And in this movie it comes to a head, and when it does, it diminishes one of the potentially most potent emotional moments in the entire film. This moment, of course, is the death of Fili.

Okay, and here I get a little snippy. Honest to God, I get that Kili is cute and Thorin is conflicted and has some real and serious trials to overcome, and Bilbo is saucy and adorable, but Fili is the definition of stalwart. He supports his uncle, he stays behind to care for his wounded brother, he stays calm and does his duty and then, when everyone else is getting excruciatingly long fight scenes before they go the way of the dodo, he gets stabbed from behind and flung down in front of his brother, who sets off with a vengeance and then gets distracted by saving his lady love. Which, fine! She should totally live. But can we just reflect for a moment on the fact that Thorin's heir has bit the dust, the one who loves without reservation, the one who stands up for the most important people in his life without any expectation of a thank you (which he doesn't get, I note)? Kili gets a long, drawn-out eye contact love affair with Tauriel, Thorin gets to talk it out with Bilbo before he goes (after being a fucking idiot--I mean, his death was a beautiful scene, but what a fucking way to go) and Fili just...dies. After telling his family to run, which naturally they don't do.  I just feel like his character could have been developed more fully, since we're disregarding the source text so much.

Anyway! Apart from that, this is definitely the movie of the year with regards to enormous, elaborate, pretty thrilling fight scenes. Seriously, I was literally shaking while watching some of them, my adrenaline was pumping so hard. I love me some fight scenes, I truly do, and action/adventure is a perennial favorite of mine, so...overall, I found it enjoyable. I love the cast (Richard Armitage, Lee Pace, Benedict Dragonbatch, Martin Freehobbit, rawr) and the settings were gorgeous, and anything that brings fantasy to the forefront deserves some credit in my mind. Fun movie. I cried a little bit, in between wondering who the hell uses a sword in a reverse grip (Mirkwood elves, apparently, but honest to god, Thranduil, you're enormously tall, use that to your advantage!) and laughing over dwarves who ride battle hogs. Yes, battle hogs. Well played there, Mr. Jackson.

The Ginormous New Year's Giveaway Post!

Hi darlins!

Oh wow, 2015! You coy minx, with so much potential on offer. 2014, you were a year for a lot of personal growth and learning to follow through on things, and in 2015 I'm going to try to reap the benefits of those lessons.

I've got stories lined up with Less Than Three Press, Riptide (my new venture of last year, I'm so excited about this one) and hopefully Dreamspinner as well. I'm going to be querying agents for one novel that I've just finished (praise be) and one I plan to write later this year. I'm trying to write 4 novels this year. 4. Plus novellas and short stories. I'm so tired of my day job, I can't even tell you. It's time to stoke the fire and get into doing what I really want to do, which is write full time.

I'm keeping up on the serial novels on the blog, and will be turning some of them into self-pubbed novels in the new year. I won't be taking anything away, but I'll do my best to make the new versions worth your time. Once I finish Soothsayer, I'll be moving on to the sequel/spin-off of The Academy (muted cheers) so there's plenty to come that I hope you'll enjoy.

**Special note of thanks to Traductores Anonimos, who graciously provided my first ever Spanish story translation for You Get Full Credit For Being Alive. They've got another one coming in 2015, I can't wait!**

So, yes, busy busy. But I wouldn't have this kind of motivation if I didn't have fabulous people from all over the world helping me, and I want to let you (yeah, you, the people reading this blog for the most part, you're the group I'm talking to) know that I appreciate you. Hence the giveaway!

I couldn't narrow down the number of gifts I want to give to only one, so I'll just list them all.

1) An e-copy of every new story of mine that's published in 2015. This includes anthologies, I will work something out.

2) A paperback copy of LT3's Missed Connections anthology (don't look at the reviews, those people haven't made it past the first story for the most part. I'm incredibly pleased with the sci-fi story of mine that's in this antho) that I will ship anywhere in the world. Anywhere. Except Antarctica, that's just prohibitively expensive.

3) An original short story (it has to be short, I've still got some monkeys on my back when it comes to writing on story prompts (yes, if you're reading this from Bath, you know the one I'm referring to--it's happening this year!)) on just about anything you care to prompt me with. A spin-off of something I've written before, something completely new, any genre, and pairing--it doesn't have to be a romance, it can be anything. Anything but fanfic, because while I will be putting some of that out there in the New Year (it's so relaxing to write) I can't say it's any good, so. That's my caveat.

4) The chance to be a beta-reader for any project of mine that interests you. What's on deck? I've got a 110k m/m fantasy novel roughed out and ready to go, I'm working on a cyberpunk novel, I've got a contemporary percolating that I'll start in February...there's lots, and you'll get first dibs. You don't have to critique if you don't want to, it could be as simple as just getting your hands on it before everyone else.

Is that enough? It sounds pretty good to me...I hope you think so too! And now for: The Rules!!! 
All you have to do is comment below to get entered. Other ways to enter: shoot me a comment on Goodreads when this posts there, message me on Twitter, comment on Facebook. So much social media, oy, but it's part of being engaged, I guess. Be sure to mention which #  gift/s you're interested in (ie 1, 2, 3 or 4, you only get to pick one so choose wisely, Indiana Jones). I'll use a random number generator to pick winners on the 8th, one week from today. You can't win more than once, but you can enter multiple times to increase your odds.

Happy New Year! *throws confetti at you*

Me in my traditional New Year's garb. I sit like this all the time, yeah.