Vixenwriter

Hey all, I’m guest blogging over at Novel Thoughts - head on over to say hello and enter for a chance to win booktype love.

Okey dokey - so how about a little something from my most recent Samhain release - Cascadia Wolves: Standoff.

Adult content behind the cut. Oh and werewolves too.

Read the rest of this entry ?

Blurby Bit: For most of his life, Cade Warden has put the needs of his Pack first, setting aside everything else—even the emptiness he feels from having no mate. But Warren Pellini and his thugs have a biological weapon, threatening everything Cade holds dear.

Now it’s Grace’s turn to put her protective instincts aside and stand by, Cade’s life in her hands, as her mate risks everything for his people.

Tomorrow, Standoff, the last book in this story arc of my Cascadia Wolves series, releases from Samhain.

I love this cover! Anne Caine does a great job but I must say I’ve loved every single cover in this series. They’ve all been so pretty and done so well - I’ve had great cover mojo.But it’s over. In the last year I’ve ended two series - this one, my Cascadia Wolves and my Chase Brothers books. I’ll continue on with both worlds. In fact I’ve already contracted Unexpected, Megan’s story for August and I really want to write Nathan Murphy’s story to revisit Petal. But while I love series and the sense of home I can build with a cast of characters readers can revisit time and again, I think it’s best if they don’t drag on too long. I want to end when readers want more, not when they’re reading and thinking, “Gah, she really neededed to stop this series two books ago!”

Series enable an author to really dig deep, to create a world built over many books. What that means is I can take a town like Petal and breathe real life into her. I can give Petal traditions like Homecoming, which I’ve come back to in every story. Or in the case of this particular family, the Christmas proposal or wedding. I love that. I love that as a reader! I love how I can take werewolves and create government. Law and order and lawlessness too. I’ve had four books to build a paranormal universe in, which has been a treat. Four books to build the suspense with the werewolf mafia. I’m spoiled and it’s been a great ride.

I think about Nora Roberts’ trilogies and I think she as the right idea. She builds enough to give readers a sense of something big and sweeping and yet intimate at the same time. Very few authors can take it more than four books in the same story setting and make it work over and over. Kim Harrison can (I just finished The Outlaw Demon Wails this last week and OMG! it was fab), Nora as JD Robb can do it with her In Death books - but in a fully realized romance world you don’t see it as often and after book five, it begins to seem all a big stretch (sister’s best friend’s baby sitter’s brother in law’s best friend). I do love spin offs though! Like I love cupcakes. I’ll eat up every book related to the family Jenny Cruisie introduces us to in Welcome To Temptation (and Davy’s story was so good!), or the Chesapeake books from Nora, or SEP’s Chicago Stars. There’s something really special about returning to a world you’ve loved so much.

What about you all? What do you like best about series? Do you read them? Which ones?

PS - I’ve been lucky enough to get early reviews on this one: 5 Nymphs - I’ll say up front that I loved this story. It has everything needed to make a great book…a well written and plotted ongoing storyline, great secondary characters well integrated from previous books and two sexy, determined and dedicated individuals as our hero and heroine. It’s a thrilling story that pulled me in from the very first words and kept me racing through its pages until I reached the action filled end.

4 1/2 stars from JERR: Lauren Dane has done a magnificent job of combining awesome characters and a sparkling plot. I only hope that this is not the last installment in the Cascadia Wolves series.

5 Blue Ribbons from Romance Junkies: I loved the intensity of this storyline and the emotional connections between the characters, but I especially adored Grace’s honest reactions and willingness to stand up for herself. She does it with such style that I found myself immersed in each heated scene. If you’re reading this book solely for the romance, Ms. Dane doesn’t disappoint there either. There’s tons of red hot steamy sexy scenes and of course with a couple that butts heads as often as Cade and Grace do, there’s plenty of make up sex that’ll leave you hot and bothered. Beautifully written Ms. Dane. I’ll be anxiously awaiting more Cascadian Wolves tales in the near future.

How about an excerpt? Behind the jump…
Read the rest of this entry ?

I love Anne Cain. I’m just sayin - she makes me all giddy with her covers. God, look at this. Happy sigh.

First a shout out to Frauke at Croco Designs who has (as usual) gone above and beyond the call of duty to not only create a fabulous splash page for my Vegas anthology but who’s spent a huge amount of her time in moving my website from my old host to her fabulous new digs at Janus Portal. She’s a fabulous designer and I adore her work and her as a person!

Also, the fabulous Dreamforge Media is designing a new blog template for the Maverick Authors! I can’t wait to unveil it. All kinds of exciting stuff going on!

Also, yesterday, the new RT came in the mail. I already knew I’d gotten a fabulous review for Ascension but EC had a backpage ad with one of the anthologies I’m in - Feral Fascination as well as in the Spring books preview, the Vegas anthology got a mention! It was quite lovely to see. Also, some friends got some great reviews, which is also nice to see.

Cooking on Battlefront - and I made a Battlefront book page here so you can read the loose blurb for it and get an idea of what the book is about. I’m just shy of 50K now, over halfway finished with the book and now that I’m getting ready to transition, I’m feeling better about pacing. The middle of a book is always the hardest for me to write!

Tonight is Battlestar Galactica Razor with my dude! It’s a movie that gives you the story of what happened on the Pegasus when the Cylons attacked up until the start of this upcoming season. Yes, yes I am a sci fi freak and I’m proud of it! This movie is on my calendar I so love the series, LOL. Plus, it’s good date night fodder with my husband.

Monday I’ll work on Standoff, it’ll have been a week since I finished so it had some time to digest.

Um, that’s really about it. I’m going to gorge on Gordon Ramsay today on the BBC. I love him so much.

I finished Cascadia Wolves: Standoff last night. And now my brain has eaten all my every day words. I spent part of my morning as I ordered my children around, pointing at stuff and making “I’m totally serious!” noises. Not that they took me serious or anything, but we all have appearances to keep up.

I’m happy, so very happy with this book. Made me cry when I finished it and it had a sort of rough start but once I hit that sweet spot it really just finished itself with me riding along and typing as fast as I could. I’ll leave it until next week and we’ll see how I feel when I pick it up again.

Now I have edits on Celebration for the Dead and second round on Wolf Unbound and then it’s on to Battlefront! I have it all printed out and waiting for me to pick it up and re-immerse myself in Sera, Ash and Brandt’s world.

All the while listening to Songs of Faith and Devotion over and over. Next week it’ll be something else, but for now, the dark emotion of the songs really gets to me. I don’t think I’m going to have happy and light music in my playlist for a while, LOL.

I had something else I was going to say but my brain ate it. So it probably wasn’t important. Probably. BTW, Jill Shalvis owns my heart right now. I love her writing. I keep wanting to stop what I’m doing to sneak some reading time in.

50K on Standoff! Yay!

Also, in yay news - Witches Knot: Thrice United is now available in print from Ellora’s Cave’s new print store!

To celebrate the recent release of Feral Fascination, the anthology containing Reluctant, in print, several of the anthology authors will be at the EC Reader Chat tomorrow afternoon so pop over to say hello, read fun excerpts and have a good time!

I’m caught up in writing today so I don’t have much else to say! Oh, other than if you write a disgruntled letter to the RWR and pretend to be just a reader but you’re really an author in competition with the books you’re complaining about? Naughty. And not the fun kind of naughty either.

But on to the good kind of naughty - I hear it’s Gerard’s birthday. My goodness, I think someone needs some birthday spankings!

oh and

after looking at those it feels more like it’s my birthday!

I have now turned the corner in Standoff and I’m entering the “end of the book” stage. I do have that vague, “god is this all just words put together in no coherent fashion” feeling in the back of my head as I ususally do at this part, but I’m flipping it off and I totally will call it a diva and shove it if I have to.

Also, in news that makes me giggly - So last night I got an email from the totally fabulous Rhian who’s sent me a link. She’s made a mini-movie and I’m in it. I watched it and laughed and laughed and laughed some more.

It’s violent in that summer movie at the lake is so if you’re very sensitive, don’t click the link. However, it’s totally cartoonish and also features Anya Bast and Megan Hart as well as Lila Dubois and Jill the Acadian.

Check it out!

Over 5K yesterday on Standoff and I’m so thrilled! Last night as I was writing a scene that really only came to me a few days ago, I hit that sweet spot where the words just fell from my fingertips. I’m pleased with what came out and I feel like I *truly* know Grace now where I only got glimpses of her before. I love that! This book has been a lot like Chased was as I wrote it. I feel like I started off with an idea of who Liv was but she really revealed herself to me midpoint and it was a revelation to us both.

Books ebb and flow. Sometimes they’re fast and relatively painless to write. Other times you have periods when you’re sure the book sucks swampwater. I feel with this book I’ve had a clear overview but the writing has been a series of small discoveries as I put it all together.

Each time I write something I learn more about myself, my process and really, about writing in general. There are times when you feel like it’s just not coming together but you keep working and working and suddenly, things move and clear up and wow, it’s not the way you’d originally imagined it at that level of detail but it’s just exactly what it should be.

Because this book is the last in a four book story arc, I’ve had to be careful and weave all the loose threads into the whole. This is an interesting challenge. First because I hadn’t imagined it would *be* a four book story arc when I wrote Enforcer. It just worked out that way when I wrote Tri Mates and suddenly I thought, hmm, this is a big story, wouldn’t it be fun if I actually, oh say, planned out the series in advance?

Anyway, I outlined Wolf Unbound and Standoff at the same time, closing the loop and ending the story and the series. We’ll see if I want to do this again when I finish Standoff, LOL, but right now I’m thinking I would in a heartbeat.

Speaking of Wolf Unbound - I got my cover a la Dawn Seewer yesterday

WHEE! I love it. I’ve not worked with Dawn before but once I opened that jpg I was a fan for life.