Fluffy, Fun Mind Candy Self-Promo

Ah, the self-promotion thread. This was a post I did not want to write. Not just because I'm uncomfortable with self-promotion (because I'm a socially awkward dork) but because doing this post forces me to admit that the past two years have been a creative wasteland for me. Am I sitting on a work in progress where I know what happens? Yes. It is on contract? Yes. Have I been able to make a damned bit of progress on it? Not so far. Working on changing it - on changing me. Until then, if you want a low cognitive lift, fun and games story, I've got you covered.

The last thing I wrote and published is a fluffy little bit of mind-candy about a witch forced to work with a vampire to solve a murder.

Someone is sacrificing innocent people in the Seattle Underground. The murderer is trying, and succeeding, to raise a rogue vampire assassin. Rose Buchanan has the magic and the will to stand toe to toe with Vampire Magic. Including that possessed by the gorgeous blue-eyed vampire assassin who kidnaps her in a bid to pull a suspect list from her mind. When he can’t overcome her will, he releases her and sets out to woo it from her instead.

When she’s freed, Rose is more than ready to stake herself a vampire, but he’s a witness to the three murders. She can’t destroy him. Yet. Worse still to have to try to work with him when he keeps dialing the charm to 13.

Gethin is a vampire assassin forged long ago to police the Vampire Nation under the control of the Vampire Council. Now, the council believes the time of the assassins has passed. One by one, Gethin’s fellow assassins and their Blood Knives have been destroyed. Only he remains, his Blood Knife in the hands of a murderous, unhinged human.

Rose has a choice to make. Destroy Gethin or find a way to free him and make the entire Vampire Nation her enemy. 

How I Hook

 Hooks? We don't need no stinkin' hooks. 

I'm reading over the list of seven hooks and either I don't understand them - entirely possible because this week is the first time I'd seen them. Seems to me they lack a little imagination because I don't see an action hook. And y'all, that's my favorite! 

Though I am in a class right now that's teaching me to hook via character. This is alien territory for me, but in a romance novel, it makes total sense that you'd want your readers to connect with the characters before, or as, the story action kicks off.

• Enemy Within: Sun glinting off the barrel of a gun stopped Captain Ari Idylle dead in her tracks. (I'm calling this the Oh, shit hook.)
  
• Enemy Games: The communications panel trilled, echoing the call in the confines of the tiny cockpit. (Uhm. I dunno? This is the point where everything changes for the hero. Does that make this a why hook? Or just a weak hook?)
  
• Enemy Storm: Holy Gods, don’t know what I did to piss you off, but dropping a starship on my head is overkill. (Ah, Edie. I'd like to imagine this is action and character combined, but that could be wishful thinking.)
  
• Enemy Deliverance: Even though her eyes were closed, even though she’d done her best to relax in the tiny barracks pod that qualified as a bunk, even though rainwater dripped on her mattress in a lulling plip, plip, plip, Ildri Bynovan wasn’t asleep. (Character and setting.)
• Enemy Mine: Priority Two Alert. Assassination contract for Captain Xiao Zhong verified. Guild assassin Mekise Tolenga en route.(Definitely a why)
  

 You can see a major change between books 1 to 3 and book 4. Also, sneak peak. You're getting to look at an opening line for a book that hasn't been published yet.

Well okay, Marcella. That's the SFR. What about the others?

Look at the fantasies.

• Blood Knife: The sweet scent of coffee spiked with caramel syrup preceded the shadow that obscured the golden October sunshine pouring into my office. (Setting I think.)
  

• Emissary: When I walked out of the Red Desert into the thin strip of fertile land I’d left as a girl, I barely recognized it. (I have no idea what this is.)

Urban Fantasy

• Nightmare Ink: Funny how longing for something you can’t have gets blown away in the first swirl of snowflakes heralding an oncoming blizzard. (No idea what this is.)
• Bound by Ink: Isa hadn’t intended to end up in a crowd of people so soon after getting rid of a Living Tattoo who’d wanted to kill her and take over her body for his own use. (This must be the Why.) 

The paranormal.

• Damned if He Does: The problem with being damned was that no one would meet your eye.(Character, I think.)

Huh. Look at that. I only thought that action was my preference. Looking through my first lines, it looks like I've done far more character hooks than action hooks.

My illusions are so shattered. What is writing even?