A new review for Shadowed

Well, gee.  Really?

Apparently so!  Coffeetimeromance.com just reviewed Shadowed and said all kinds of nice things about it. Have a link and an excerpt:

Shadowed review

"The adrenaline never stops racing as you are swept along in a fury of passion and danger with Rhys and Danny. Danny is not quite as clueless as everyone seems to think, but I really like his humble and quiet nature. He is a mirror image of his lover, Rhys, but that only makes their relationship all the more interesting. I do suggest reading Treasured first, and definitely hope there will be a third, because their story does not feel at all finished."

Thanks, Lototy!  I hope there'll be a third story as well.  I think I could round out Daniel and Rhys' story arc (at least this one) in a third book, and answer a lot of questions that readers have brought up in doing so.  Like, how can someone who professes to value history as much as Daniel does have a relationship with someone who makes his living stealing it?  Really.  No, seriously, how can he actually put up with that, isn't he just lying to himself?

All this and more will be revealed if I get a contract for a third story.  Fingers crossed.  Want to check out the first two?  Head to http://pinkpetalbooks.com/Cari-Z/ for the backlist.

In the meantime I'm working on more Pandora, I'm in the middle of edits on A Blinded Mind (the one I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year, intriguing but kind of dark), and there are a few more things waiting for approval before I can talk to you about them with any sense of triumph and/or accomplishment.

Review for Shadowed

Jenre, at her aptly-named Well Read blog, has reviewed my novella Shadowed.  This is a squee-causing event, and as such deserves a post with a link for the interested:  Shadowed review. 

Here's a taste of said review:  Those readers who liked Treasured are going to like this book too. It gives us an opportunity to delve deeper into the relationship with Daniel and Rhys as well as seeing some of Rhys' background. There's a good mix of emotion and action in the story coupled with some interesting paranormal ideas. Overall, I would recommend Shadowed with a grade of 'Very Good', and I'm really looking forward to more from these great characters.

Aww, thanks!  I hope to write more for them.



As noted, Shadowed is the sequel to an earlier story, Treasured, and things are brought up in the review that remind me that there's still a lot of back story to resolve, and so I'd better get on it.  Hopefully Pink Petal Books will contract me for a third installment.  If you're looking for an intro to the body of work that is my fictional existence, I think this series is a fun way to go.  You can get it here: http://pinkpetalbooks.com/Shadowed-by-Cari-Z.html.

And just as a reminder...

New Release: Shadowed

Oooohhh...niiiice:)

Shadowed, published by Pink Petal Books, is the sequel to Treasured and stars the same main characters, Daniel Hart and Reese Daveth.  It's magic and mayhem and sex and sweetness and other wonderful things revolving around two of my favorite characters.  Their stories are so easy to write, and the stuff that comes out is so much fun.  If you liked Treasured I think you'll really enjoy Shadowed, and if you haven't read Treasured yet, it would be nice but it isn't necessary in order to understand what goes on in this story.

Have a cover, a blurb and a link!

                                                                   Shadowed Link

After a rocky start to their relationship, Daniel Hart and Rhys Daveth are looking forward to putting the past behind them and spending a private, romantic Christmas holiday together in Venice. Trouble follows their trail, however, and after only a few days together Rhys is drugged and kidnapped by agents of an espionage program that he fled from years ago. Daniel barely escapes being taken as well, and afterwards is found by another party interested in Rhys: his friends and coworkers, fellow thieves who tracked him down once they realized he was being hunted.




Time is flying and the thieves are having no success finding Rhys, despite their magical and technological expertise. In order to save his lover’s life, Daniel will have to trust a new magic that exists between him and Rhys, a connection he doesn’t understand and has never mentioned to anyone else. Daniel doesn’t know what he’s dealing with or what the consequences might be, but if he doesn’t use his strange new ability to find Rhys, the man he loves may be lost forever.

Sequel to Treasured!

So, Pink Petal Books has contracted with me for the sequel to Treasured, to be titled Shadowed.  This is great news for me, since I'm completely in love with the main characters of this series, and great news for you because, um, you like my stuff.  Yeah?  Yeah!

The novella is about 22k words and takes our men to Venice, where they experience fascinating history, glorious architecture, running for their lives and kidnapping.  Variety, it's the spice of life.  PPB is a great place to publish and I'm sure by the time the novella comes out it will be vastly improved with editing and an awesome cover, but I'm going to give out a snippet now, since it's not going to be released until May or June.  Personal denial, thy name is not Cari.

The next part of Pandora is coming, never fear...and my big writing goal for the month is to have the fourth and final part of Shadows and Light finished by the end of March.  I got some help on certain sticking points with the plot, and I think it's coming together.  Anyway.  C'est la vie.

Here's the excerpt from Shadowed, taken from the beginning.


***

Reese Daveth could charm the scales off a snake. It was kind of disturbing to watch, actually.

I knew Reese was charming, I’d experienced the full weight his sparkling personality firsthand. When that much wicked charisma was suddenly leveled at you it could be hard to remember your own name, much less take the time to wonder who this gorgeous man actually was and how he had talked you into a date, or out of a speeding ticket, or in this case, into letting your only son spend his winter break traveling abroad with his significant other instead of spending it with his mother. Which was how my mom thought I should be spending it, obviously.

Mom and I lived a few hours apart, so it wasn’t really convenient for me to visit her as often as she thought I should. When the winter holidays rolled around she insisted, point blank, that I give her two weeks of my time, seeing as how she had given me nine months of undivided attention followed by eighteen years of loving care. I’d never understood why my mom insisted on bringing up her pregnancy every time we argued, but she wielded it like it was a verbal rapier. “I carried you for nine months, the least you can do for me is x.” Parry, riposte, point.

Usually I didn’t mind visiting my mom, even if it meant spending two weeks basically just watching television and eating bland food. I’d inherited all of my mother’s skill in the kitchen, which was precisely none, so together we made do on boxed mac and cheese and microwave dinners. This holiday, however, I had already made other plans. My…my what, boyfriend? Paramour? Shapeshifting doppelganger/unrepentant thief/occasional incredibly hot hookup? Reese was all of those things and I hoped a few others, and he had asked me to go to Venice with him over my break, his treat. I still wasn’t entirely sure why, but I wanted to go with him anyway.

Mom was understandably skeptical. I’d never even mentioned Reese to her, and all of a sudden I was going to Europe with him? This set off a scolding of epic proportions, finishing with an insistence that if I was going to abandon her during the holidays, the least I could do was introduce her to my oh-so-convenient man of mystery. I think she was half convinced that I’d made him up just to get out of coming to see her. Surprisingly, Reese had no problem with paying her a visit.

“I figured as much, Danny,” he told me over the phone. I didn’t have a number that worked consistently for Reese, but he called me about once a week. “She’s closer to New Orleans, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then we’ll just fly out of there afterwards. Gotta keep the mum happy, otherwise life will be hell.”

“It sounds like you’ve met her.”

Reese laughed. It was a low, warm chuckle that sent a thrill of heat through me even though I’d heard it dozens of times. “I know the type, pet. Don’t worry. I’ll work it out so that she’s begging me to take you away.”

At the time, I wasn’t so sure that he meant it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Reese was a talented guy, but my mom was implacable when she thought she was in the right, which was most of the time. I felt like we were headed towards the classic “unstoppable force versus immovable object” paradox. I had underestimated Reese, however.