Lorelie Brown: Rust City Book Con Featured Author

Welcome to your early-bird peek at some of the fantastic authors who are already signed up for the conference. Today I'm showcasing Lorelie Brown, who writes under her own name and also co-writes as Katie Porter.

Tell us a little about what you write, Lorelie!

I write lots of stuff, mostly because I'm easily distracted. I've written contemporary romances featuring surfers for Signet, Victorians for Samhain and co-written erotic romance as Katie Porter. My most recent release is a short story in the awesome anthology 90s Playlist.

I'm a big fan of Katie Porter -- there are a couple of reviews here and here at Alpha Heroes! I'll have to check out your solo work.  Ok, Lorelie, let's talk about RustCity!

1. Fill in the blank: "I used to be really good at shooting a 9mm pistol , but these days I'm pretty rusty." Hmmm. Let's hope you never need that particular skill outside a target range!

2. Eminem or Aretha? Explain.

Eminem. He's not my favorite, but my teenager loves him, so I hear white boy rap way more often than I do Aretha. Yes, my kids have, um, broadened my musical listening as well, for sure.

3. Choose One:
Vernors
Faygo
I'm confused. And not from around here.

Faygo and Vernors are locally made soft drink brands. They have followers that border on... fanatical.

4. What are you looking forward to most at the RustCity conference? Getting to know readers on a really chill, individual level!

5. Which is NOT an actual community in Michigan? (no googling!)
Bad Axe
Mullet Lake
Alpha
Hero
Colon
Kalamazoo
(The correct answer is "Hero." I got very tickled at some of the names, especially when I saw that "Alpha" was one!)

6. Your latest work of fiction features a wealthy industrialist and an R&B singer. What's the first sentence? ʺI don't care how much it costs: when I say I need Josh Mercury to play at my niece's birthday party, it's your job to make it happen.ʺ

Josh Mercury! That's a great name! Related to Freddie, perhaps.

What's it about? I'm not totally sure, but the industrialist is the heroine and the R'nB artist is the hero. Coz gender flipping is how I roll. ;-) Yeah, we love that! 

7. And finally, would you like to participate in the Alpha Heroes Five Words Fiction Game? Yes please!

Yay! You get to start us off in the Steampunk category.  Your challenge words are: surf, alpha, rust, solder, groove.  The category guidelines are: set mid-nineteenth century, little or no magic, but alternate history without petroleum-fueled technology or electricity. (For more details about how the game works, refer to this post.)

Alma hadn't been home in three years.

She never would have come home if she could have avoided it.

As the train chugged to a stop at the Fairmeadow Depot, she gathered her valise and tucked her parasol under one arm. She balanced the bag against her chest. She was sweating through her lace gloves. If she dropped it, the contents would splinter into a hundred pieces and all the soldering in the world wouldn't put them back together again.

Much like Humpty Dumpty, she thought.

The depot was surprisingly busy given how small a town Alma remembered Fairmeadow as. A little village shouldn't have this many bodies on the platform. A gentleman in a fitted suit bounced off her, muttering his apologies. She clutched her case to her chest.

Her papa waited in the street, one foot on the fender of his velocimobile. "Brought trouble with you, I see already."

She threw a glance over her shoulder before realizing the very act is what would give her away. "Never, papa."

A groove dug between his salt and pepper eyebrows. "Then what have ye come back here for? Your apprenticeship isn't up for another six months."

Her stomach surfed the border between casting up her accounts and turning into a solid block of rust. Six months. She'd been only six months from being independent forever, free from the jurisdiction of Her Majesty's Order of the Alpha Cross. She forced herself to smile. "I missed you, and mum, and the boys. I applied for a special visiting license."

That much was true. She had the license in her valise.

Right next to the analytical engine she'd stolen.

Wow, this story is off to a GREAT start.  I am loving these so much.  Thank you for hanging out here at Alpha Heroes and playing my game!  Where else should folks look for you?

I'm most easily found and most active at Twitter: @LorelieBrown

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Registration is now open for #RustCity16!

Be sure to keep up with all things Rust City 2016, by following it via your own personal social media drug of choice: Facebook |Twitter | Google+ | Tumblr | Instagram | RSVP at the Facebook Event.

Sunday Soup - December 13

In The Soup This Week... Penny Watson, AM Arthur, and a splash of McSweeneys

Soup Dish:  on my mind
✽McSweeney's had a cool rant about Jane Austen interpretations. Hat tip to Julia Quinn's Facebook feed for source.

✽Pretty much everything I marked over the last week or two has been a list of some sort, and I think I'm going to post a list of lists later this month, so I'm saving them up. 

What I'm reading
✽I never did any kind of announcement, but I have dipped a toe into reviewing elsewhere, for RT Book Reviews. I'm reviewing under my own name, so a quick search on "Onychuk" will show you what I've been up to. To see the most current stuff, you can subscribe to RT! What this means for the blog is that some of the reading I do, I can't really talk about here. So if it it seems like my reading week is pretty thin sometimes, that might be why. This week I spent quite a bit of my reading time on a chunky fantasy romance for a March review, so the rest of the Soup is about short pieces.

✽My main read for the week was Penny Watson's Klaus Brothers series. I bought the 'boxed set' of the first three (still on sale!). I've been posting with Penny for a long time (Facebook tells me we became friends 6 years ago!), but I wasn't too sure about the appeal of a romance hero in the context of Santa, the North pole, and magic elves. It's definitely a little quirky. In Penny's world, Santa trains for the Ironman triathlons in the off-season, and has a bit of a sharp temper along with five hunky sons who function as the executive staff, running the whole toymaking and distribution enterprise. The Klaus family expectations contribute to some of the conflict, but the warm family relations add much to the feel-good nature of the series. At times I found the juxtaposition of hot romance in the context of magical children's mythology to be a little jarring: you have to suspend disbelief around the fact that a) not all children get toys for Christmas because poverty, and b) not all people celebrate Christmas -- so in that sense, it has that simplistic children's world-building; but the romances themselves were really lovely. The characters and their chemistry are everything you want in a romance. Romance fans who also love movies like Elf and The Santa Clause should enjoy these tremendously.

✽Looking for some short reads, I browsed through some of the ebooks I got from RT14. The interesting thing about how this goes down is that when I look at it on my kindle list, I have a title, author, and an idea of how long it is -- that's it.  This title, "No Such Thing" said, "probably contemporary," or more accurately, "probably not paranormal," but that's kind of it. I did not recognize the author, A.M. Arthur.  I mean, it's not like I couldn't look these things up, but you know, that would've required moving from the couch.  So I opened this one up and read a few pages, then a few more, and soon I was very much drawn in.  It's an NA/mm romance, between Alessandro, a former foster kid with a bit of an undeserved delinquent reputation, and Jaime, a very sheltered guy who spent his teens surviving a near-fatal heart condition. It's not exactly a coming-out story, but there is some conflict around small-town homophobia and bashing (heartbreaking and still so f*cking common). I don't read much m/m, so I don't have a much in the way of a reference point, but I found these characters engaging and sweet and with personalities vivid enough to leap off the page. Thumbs up from me.

Laura Bickle: Rust City Book Con Featured Author

Welcome to your early-bird peek at some of the fantastic authors who are already signed up for the conference. Today I'm showcasing Laura Bickle, author of YA and adult contemporary fantasy.

Hi Laura! Tell us a little about your stuff!

Hi Nicola!  My latest release is MERCURY RETROGRADE (Harper Voyager Impuse), the second in the DARK ALCHEMY series. When I'm not writing, I'm busily serving my gang of semi-reformed feral cats.

"Semi reformed"... that sounds kind of ominous....! So let's talk about RustCity, shall we?

1. Fill in the blank: "I used to be really good at reading Tarot cards , but these days I'm pretty rusty."  (Tarot cards -- so intriguing!)

2. Eminem or Aretha? Explain.

Aretha. Because of her incredible, luminous awesomeness.

Nice answer.  I approve.

3. Choose One:
Vernors
Faygo
I'm confused. And not from around here.


4. What are you looking forward to most at the RustCity conference?
  I'm looking forward to getting the chance to meet folks in person that I've only met online!

5. Which is NOT an actual community in Michigan? (no googling!)
Bad Axe
Mullet Lake
Alpha
Hero
Colon
Kalamazoo
(The correct answer is "Hero." I got very tickled at some of the names, especially when I saw that "Alpha" was one!)

6. Your latest work of fiction features a wealthy industrialist and an R & B singer. What's the first sentence?
  There were two dead bodies found in the trunk of Jill's rental car.

7. And finally, would you like to participate in the Alpha Heroes Five Words Fiction Game?

Yes! Can I do magical paranormal stuff, maybe some anthropomorphic lizards?

Absolutely! How about you kick us off?  Your words are:  alchemy, alpha, rust, spreadsheet, and groove.  The category guidelines are: anything goes, including paranormal, fantasy, and time-travel! (For more details about how the game works, refer to this post.)

Yay!!! Total freedom!

ALCHEMY RUSTS

If you don’t tend it properly, even the best-cast alchemy will rust.

Mara peered into the fire of the athanor, stirring the flames with a piece of pipe. In the belly of the cinder-block furnace she’d built, a glass mason jar perched. Surrounded by a nest of litter she’d found in the abandoned house – yellowed spreadsheets, broken tree branches, and a handful of wine corks – it seemed like a pathetic attempt at big magic. Flames licked the glass, changing color from blue to red as they boiled the silvery liquid inside.

A fire salamander, irritated by her prodding, slipped out of the firebox and waddled across the makeshift hearth. He was clearly the alpha salamander of those inside the furnace, the king. He was the largest and most brightly-colored of the group, nearly twelve inches long and covered in a gold glittery hide. He stared up at Mara with slitted eyes, tail lashing.

“Yes. I know that I’m doing it all wrong,” she sighed. She hadn’t worked alchemy for years, and it showed. The solution in the bottle was bubbling unevenly, and a crack had formed at the lip of the jar.

“Mrrp,” the salamander agreed. She’d clearly disturbed his sleep when she’d summoned him and his fellows. Salamanders were not known to be patient.

“How about a trade for your help?” Mara reached into her pocket for a handful of unpopped popcorn. She placed it on the hearth between them. The corn was interspersed with bits of lint and a quarter. She had nothing else to offer him, but perhaps he would at least be amused.

The salamander cocked his head, then scuttled forward. He gathered the pieces of popcorn, stuffing them in his mouth like a squirrel, and scurried back to the fire.

Mara sighed. He’d accepted it. Peering into the flame, she could see him dancing with the other salamanders and flinging the corn about – he’d clearly gotten back in his groove, and happy elementals were always good magic.

The silvery liquid in the jar had begun to blacken. Sweating, Mara donned a welder’s glove and reached inside for the precious potion. She set the jar down on the hearth and stared at it, waiting for the solution to settle.

Beyond, in the fire, the popcorn began to pop, with the sound of tiny gunshots. The salamanders chortled in glee as the fire died out, springing after the bits of yummy joy before they faded back into the belly of the furnace.

Mara stared at the jar. Working up her nerve, she unscrewed the lid.

OK, that is an amazing start.  Thank you so much for playing, Laura!  

If you'd like to check out more from this storyteller, please have a look at the links below:

Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  MERCURY RETROGRADE on Amazon

Come back next Thursday for more Five Words Fiction from another fabulous RustCity16 author, and don't forget to comment on last week's post for a chance at a signed book from Shelly Bell!

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 Registration is now open for #RustCity16!

Be sure to keep up with all things Rust City 2016, by following it via your own personal social media drug of choice: Facebook |Twitter | Google+ | Tumblr | Instagram | RSVP at the Facebook Event.

Sunday Soup - December 6

In The Soup This Week... JR Ward, Ilona Andrews, Caroline Linden, Shelly Bell, and Jayne Ann Krentz

Soup Dish:  on my mind
✽It's been a busy week. I'm getting a lot of holiday shopping done; a lot of reading, and a lot of thinking about the social and political happenings. There's a lot going on out there.

✽I've referred to Jayne Ann Krentz's Bowling Green speech a few times over the course of this blog, and at some point, sadly, it was taken down off the web.  In this week's interview, she alludes to some of the same material, about popular fiction celebrating heroic values (in the classical sense), and why that's the reason it's both popular and persistent.

✽Here's a pop-science approach to male characteristics that have been proven in studies to be attractive to (het) women.  Of course, none of these will surprise readers of romance, since pretty much all of them feature frequently in hero descriptions.  Although the "limbal ring" is some new vocabulary for me.

✽Book Riot always delivers, this time with some really lovely editions of classics for the young readers on your list

What I'm reading
✽JR Ward's Blood Kiss was.... ready?.... fan-freakin'-tastic.  Best thing she's written since before Phury.  I really really liked the "weed-out" scenes for the trainees.  If you're not up to speed, Blood Kiss is the first in a spinoff (that isn't really a spinoff?) series from the Black Dagger Brotherhood, that follows a younger generation of vampires who have signed up to be trained to help defend the race.  The characters are post-trans, unlike the early training days of John Matthew, Blaylock, Quinn, and Lash, which was a good choice IMO.  Some of the characters have a certain recycled feel, but overall I am very happy with this book. Great central couple, a secondary arc with Butch and Marissa, just the right amount of sequel-baiting, and a welcome lack of other multiple arcs.  A bit shorter than what we've gotten used to from JR Ward, but by no means skimpy at 350 pages or so.  Strong recommend.

✽What could possibly follow that act? Why, Ilona Andrews' Sweep In Peace, of course. I really loved the first book and this one was just wonderful. The magic is just so intriguing. I'd say this stands alone reasonably well, but they're both so good, if you haven't read Clean Sweep, you won't regret picking it up.   And while we're on the topic, Andrews' has an excerpt from the upcoming Kate Daniels novella posted on their site -- Chapter 1, Magic Stars.

✽Written in My Heart, by Caroline Linden, was a sweet little short. At 33 pages, it's more of a vignette than a fully-realized story, as there is no real conflict other than distance. It's full of longing and sweet, innocent love and made a wonderful palate cleanser between darker more intense stories.

✽I also read last week's featured author, Shelly Bell's, first installment in her White-Collared serial. I've been avoiding serials in general, because I'm not a big fan of cliff-hangers and the pricing can be a little off-putting when you add everything up.  I might be coming around though.  Mercy has good characters, great sexual tension, and while the ending does make you want to read on, the story itself had a satisfying resolution, even though there is an open series arc. So like everything else that I sometimes avoid or sometime seek out based on a format or trope, it [almost] always boils down to how well the author executes. I'm not exactly sure how the whole series is structured, but the first installment opens with a graphic torture/murder scene and kicks off an arc regarding the husband of the victim, his lawyer, and his legal intern.

That's it for me this week. Hope you are enjoying the holiday season!

Shelly Bell: Rust City Book Con Featured Author

Welcome to your early-bird peek at some of the fantastic authors who are already signed up for the conference. Today I'm showcasing the spectacular
Shelly Bell

Hi Shelly! Tell us a little about your work.

Hi Nicola! I currently write the erotic suspense Benediction series for Avon Publishing. Known for its spine-tingling suspense, explicit love scenes and thrilling plot twists, the series centers around members of a BDSM sex club. Books include the White Collared serial, Red Handed, Blue Blooded, and the forthcoming Black Listed. I'm looking forward to the 2017 release of my Forbidden Lovers series, published with Grand Central Forever. When I'm not writing, working as a corporate attorney, or taking care of my family, I'm reading romance.

It sounds like you probably have LOTS of free time, right?  Whoa, I'm tired just reading that list. I recently downloaded the first Benediction title (it's sale-priced at the moment!) and I'm looking forward to checking it out.  I want to mention too, that you have a dedicated following among the ladies who read for the Avon Addict program. Ok, Shelly, let's talk about RustCity!

1. Fill in the blank: "I used to be really good at sleep , but these days I'm pretty rusty."  Yeah, with that list, I can see how sleep is the first thing to go...

2. Eminem or Aretha? Explain.

Although I do like a good Eminem song, my respect goes to Aretha. She is the Queen of Soul after all! I've grew up listening to her music. To me, she's more than an entertainer. She's a legend.
I see what you did there.  And I completely approve.

3. Choose One:
a) Vernors
b) Faygo
c) I'm confused. And not from around here.

4. What are you looking forward to most at the RustCity conference? Meeting readers! I love talking with those who love to read as much as I do. There's nothing like a good book to bring people together. I really love that about the small cons!

5. Which is NOT an actual community in Michigan? (no googling!)
a) Bad Axe
b) Mullet Lake
c)  Alpha
d) Hero
e) Colon
f) Kalamazoo
(The correct answer is "Hero." I got very tickled at some of the names, especially when I saw that "Alpha" was one!)

6. Your latest work of fiction features a wealthy industrialist and an R&B singer. What's the first sentence?  Tendrils of smoke curled around her neck like a boa constrictor.     

OK, I really like that. I think I got a little chill.

Optional: What's it about? Unaware of past sins that tie them together, a female industrialist and a male singer fall in love when they're targeted by the same killer.

7. And finally, would you like to participate in the Alpha Heroes Five Words Fiction Game?  Yes please! 

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee, I'm very excited about this! You get to kick off the contemporary category (present day, no paranormal elements).  Your challenge words are: benediction, alpha, rust, spreadsheet, and groove.

Perched on a bar stool, Maddie Jacobs brought the straw up to her crimson stained lips and said a silent benediction that Jenna’s lessons in seduction would work. After spending the past hour tossing her hair over her shoulder, sipping on straws to draw attention to her mouth, and touching strangers’ biceps while laughing at their terrible jokes, she’d give it another ten minutes before calling her plan a dismal failure.

Hunter had better take the bait.

Just because she’d lost sixty pounds, dyed her hair from a lackluster rust brown to a shiny onyx, and chemically smoothed her frizzy curls, didn’t mean he’d find her attractive.

Her friend Jenna kicked her shin, excitement sparkling in her eyes. “This is it, Maddie. He’s coming over.”

Old tapes of cruel taunts played in her mind. Hunter Allen may not have teased her like his friends had, but as the alpha of their high school class, he’d held the power in his hands to get them to stop. Instead he’d stood by and impassively watched as if she meant nothing to him. As if they hadn’t kissed behind the stage’s curtains after the sophomore play. As if they hadn’t lost their virginity with each other two nights later in her twin bed.

She hadn’t seen him since she’d moved across the country to attend Julliard four years ago. Living on her own in New York City and achieving academic success had given her the confidence she’d always lacked. By walking, eliminating junk food, and logging her weight loss on a spreadsheet to keep herself honest, she’d shed the extra pounds she’d carried by the end of her second year of drama school.

He’d never recognize her.

But she’d recognize him anywhere.

Flipping her hair over her shoulder again, she caught his approach in the corner of her eye. He boasted the same cocky strut he’d used walking the halls of North High. As if he didn’t have a care in the world. His corn silk blond hair was a bit longer in the back and a bit of day old scruff aligned the naturally tan skin of his jaw. The scar in the form of a groove on his right cheek was new, but somehow it managed to add an alluring ruggedness to his otherwise all-American good looks. And that wasn’t the only new thing about Hunter. Lord, he’d filled out his lanky frame with defined muscles she could see through his cerulean t-shirt. A shirt which brought out the blue of his eyes.

What a great start! I can't wait to see where this goes! 

Shelly, thank you so for much for hanging out here at Alpha Heroes.  I heard a rumor that you have a few extra copies of the brand spankin' new Benediction novel, Blue Blooded (there IS spanking, right??)

You'll have to read it to find out, won't you?!   I can't wait to meet everyone at the con!

Shelly is so spectacular, in fact, she has offered to give one Alpha Heroes reader a signed paper copy of Blue Blooded!  Open internationally.  I will choose one winner at random from comments.  To enter, leave a comment below, and for a double entry in the contest, write me ONE SENTENCE using all five of the challenge words: benediction, alpha, rust, spreadsheet, and groove.   Check back next Thursday for results.  If you leave your email, I promise to contact you.  If you'd rather not, then it's up to you to check and contact me!

If you don't want to wait to win, check out more from Shelly at the following links:

website  |  facebook  |  twitter    

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 Registration is now open for #RustCity16!
I mean, you ARE coming, right?? 

Be sure to keep up with all things Rust City 2016, by following it via your own personal social media drug of choice: Facebook |Twitter | Google+ | Tumblr | Instagram | RSVP at the Facebook Event.

Hey! Hey! look at this!

I AM SO EXCITED!!

You guys, I had a lot of fun with the Five Words Fiction game for the Reading Until Dawn conference.  But these authors for Rust City are taking it up a notch and OMG THIS IS GONNA BE GOOD.

In the interests of keeping the Featured Author posts at a reasonable length, I thought I'd do a little introduction to the game here.

Basically, it's a fun progressive-fiction game where each author has to build on the previous story and use five challenge words chosen by the previous player.  For the kickoff posts, I gave out the challenge words.

Kickoff posts, plural? you ask? My, you are sharp.  Yes, since I'm getting a really early start on these features, I am changing the game up slightly from last time.  We'll be running three stories simultaneously, like last time we had two.  Last time, I gave each author the option of starting a new game or building on the previous ones, and no other guidelines.  I didn't know what they'd be giving me until I got it.  This time, I'm asking that each author choose in advance from one of the following three categories:

1. Straight contemporary: set today, no magical, paranormal, or supernatural elements.
2. Steampunk: set mid-nineteenth century, little or no magic, but alternate history without petroleum-fueled technology or electricity.
3. Time-travel/paranormal: pretty much anything goes here.

Having the three tracks will give me a little more scheduling flexibility-- and I gotta say, the entries I've received back are knocking this thing out of the damn park.  So come back this Thursday and every Conference Thursday to see what's got me posting gifs instead of words to properly express this level of WOW !!!