Happy Halloween!

 This Week's Topic: On My Mind

What's on my mind today? Pfft. Sugar highs, candlelight, and spooky sights!

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Scene from The Mars Strain - Happy Halloween!

 This week we’re promoting our scariest book or scene…and, well. I’m a wuss when it comes to scary. I don’t write horror, though some creepy does sneak into my writing. 

So here’s a snippet from The Mars Strain to help you get your Halloween creep on! Enjoy!

Setup:

 Juliet’s in isolation due to a supposed contact 

with the first strain victim—and she’s been watching the clock.

The Mars Strain - Chapter 18

                                                                                                    

My palms and fingertips touch the cold glass and rings of foggy moisture surrounds each contact point. 

There isn’t anyone in the room between mine and the pod with the girl who’s writhing on the bed. She tosses and turns. Her silky black hair sticks to her face and her sheet covered arms and legs strike out again and again. 

Hazmat suits surround her and block her from view. The staff frantically press sensors to her skin, trying to get a vitascan, and two nurses administer injections. 

The man in the pod on the other side of her room has mirrored my stance. My gaze darts between hazmat helmets to him. His eyes bulge and he takes a step back. He holds up a hand to ward off the sight of what’s happening to the other patient and crosses himself. 

The girl lurches up off the bed, breaking through the hazmat suits.

A scream sticks in my throat.

The nurses grab her arms to keep her from landing on the floor. The girl’s knees buckle, her feet are solid purple, like they’ve been bruised. She holds up her petite hands, her fingers are shaking, and they’re bruised just like her feet. The purple of her fingers fades to a dark blue that has crept up her hands and I can see the lines of her veins on her forearms because they’re a dark, angry red. 

Not even her face has been spared. The tip of her nose is dark, and red thorny branches cover her cheeks.

 

She screams. 

Not a scream I can hear through the walls, but a scream I can see and feel. Her neck strains, her mouth is open wide and horror fills her eyes. Every part of her is screaming. My hair stands on end and a prickle chills the skin between my shoulder blades. 

I stumble away from the wall and wipe my hands on my pants. I can’t look away. I can’t look at anything else. All I can look at is the girl who’s stopped screaming, the girl who’s stopped moving, the girl who’s now a lifeless pile on the floor. 

Time of death: 02:59 AM. 

Burned: The Scary Scene

Our scariest book or scariest scene...Weeeeeeeell, I'm not a horror writer so I reckon I have to go with the scariest thing to me, which is reclaiming your sense of self and your soul's strength after enduring an emotionally abusive relationship. To that end, I'd have to say the first book in my Immortal Spy urban fantasy series, The Burned Spy is probably the scariest...emotionally.

In the clip below, we have a classic moment of power disparity being abused between Jörmungand (yep, the Norse World Serpent in humanoid form) and Bix the Gatekeeper. She's broken free of his thrall, but not the god himself. They're in a nightclub. She has no idea he's there until... 

From THE BURNED SPY, Immortal Spy Book 1

Bix headed for the railing overlooking the raucous floor show.

“You reek of Greek,” hissed a too familiar and unwelcome voice.

Her stomach lodged in her throat. “Go away, Jör.”

“You’re under contract with my pantheon.” He trailed a finger up and down her arm. “I want to know why there’s an archangel in our embassy.”

“First, my contract is with your sister. You’re just a witness.” She slanted away from him and drew her shoulder up to her ear. “Second, it’s a condo, not an embassy. Third, fuck off.”

He spread his arms to either side of her, pinning her against the railing. “Hel wants an update on your progress.”

The darkness rippled along her spine. This time, she didn’t fight it as it tore out the back of her dress.

Jör’s eyes widened. He tipped her over the railing until her feet no longer touched the ground, one hand heavy on her nape, the other firm on her hip. She bucked against his grip, but he held her fast.

Fear, thick and heavy weighed her down as every eye in the bar fixed on her. Shame stilled her thrashing and burned her cheeks.

The darkness retracted.

“Finally,” Jör whispered.

Light sizzled and burst.

Jör skidded across the floor in a trail of smoke. A friendly hand grabbed Bix’s feet and pulled her back to the surety of solid ground. Her date wrapped his arm firmly around her waist and hauled her up against his side. An orb of raw electricity crackled in his palm.

She tried to stop quaking. Couldn’t.

Jör regained his feet and smirked. His tongue lashed out and extinguished the smoldering of his chest pocket. He causally doffed his nonexistent hat to Ashtad, even as his gaze shifted to her. His lips moved. She didn’t need to hear his voice to know his words.

“Tick, tock.”

What an asshole, right?  Don't worry, part of Bix's character growth in the book is about no longer being a victim. For more about the Immortal Spy Urban Fantasy Series, click here!

Not So Scary

 

This week's topic is our scariest book or book with the scariest scene. I don't feel like I write anything super scary. Intense, perhaps, and slightly evil, but not scary. At least it isn't to me. I may be a poor judge since it's my own work, but I'm definitely no horror writer. 

For me, the scariest thing to write was in The Witch Collector. I can't say what that scene is without spoiling things, but the imagery certainly gave me eerie vibes. It takes place in an enchanted frozen forest and involves an unexpected occurrence that endangers the main characters. While the book has a romantic subplot, the main plot takes a few turns into darker territory.

If you're curious, you can snag The Witch Collector now. There's even a hardback available for pre-order and there's a Goodreads giveaway going on through 10/31.

Here's the blurb:

Every harvest moon, the Witch Collector rides into our valley and leads one of us to the home of the immortal Frost King, to remain forever.

Today is that day—Collecting Day.

But he will not come for me. I, Raina Bloodgood, have lived in this village for twenty-four years, and for all that time he has passed me by.

His mistake.

Raina Bloodgood has one desire: kill the Frost King and the Witch Collector who stole her sister. On Collecting Day, she means to exact murderous revenge, but a more sinister threat sets fire to her world. Rising from the ashes is the Collector, Alexus Thibault, the man she vowed to slay and the only person who can help save her sister.

Thrust into an age-old story of ice, fire, and ancient gods, Raina must abandon vengeance and aid the Witch Collector or let their empire—and her sister—fall into enemy hands. But the lines between good and evil blur, and Raina has more to lose than she imagined. What is she to do when the Witch Collector is no longer the villain who stole her sister, but the hero who’s stealing her heart?

The Witch Collector is book one in a thrilling romantic fantasy trilogy, perfect for fans of Naomi Novik, Sarah J. Maas, and Jennifer L. Armentrout.

***

"If you like your fantasy with complex magic, an intriguing protagonist, a powerful romance, and a great cast of supporting characters, I highly recommend The Witch Collector. Charissa Weaks's high-stakes storytelling will leave you waiting eagerly for the next installment." — Juliet Marillier, award-winning author of the Warrior Bards series

A romantic, fraught and fantastic journey through war-torn lands and a deliciously malevolent enchanted forest. I loved the voiceless heroine who wields magical sign language and the tormented hero determined to keep her alive and save an empire. Welcome to a compelling new fantasy world and a truly epic tale!

~ Jeffe Kennedy, award-winning author of The Forgotten Empires and Dark Wizard

"The Witch Collector is a magical, enchanting, fantasy romance whose pages are filled with threads of love, loss, and healing. Highly, highly recommended for anyone who loves fantasy romance, fantasy with strong female leads, unique magic systems, and beautiful writing." — Alexia Chantel/AC Anderson, Author of The Mars Strain

I hope you have a blessed All Hallows Eve and a great week leading up to it!

Synopses - the Pain Never Ends

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "Queries & Synopses: Bane, Benefit, or Both?"

Besides all of us immediately screeching BANE – because all sane human beings hate writing synopses – I’m here to tell you to learn to, if not love, then at least bear with them. Being able to write a decent synopsis is a critical skill for a writer, even indies. Same with queries.

Also, the need for them never goes away. If you want to be a career author, you’ll be pitching/querying your books and writing synopses for the rest of your life.

Did I scare you? It IS October, after all!

I totally sympathize, by the way. When I was a newbie writer, I was fond of saying that if I could synopsize my novel, either in an elevator pitch or a couple of pages, then I wouldn’t have had to write the whole book. Which is true in a way, but also precious.

People rightfully rolled their eyes at me.

I sucked it up and took a class on writing synopses.

The main thing I learned from the class was not necessarily how to write a synopsis, though I kind of did, but that condensing a story concept to 10 pages, 5 pages, 2 pages, 1 paragraph, 288 or 144 characters, or 1 line helped crystallize the essentials of the tale. And I had to face the very uncomfortable truth that, despite my newbie arrogance about having written this entire novel to tell the story, the main reason I couldn’t write a synopsis or come up with an effective short pitch was that I didn’t have a clear focus on that story. I didn’t KNOW what the essentials were.

That’s why I say that even indies – who may never need to write a synopsis, but will certainly need to write a blurb – will benefit from developing this skill, too.

And if you’re going for trad at all… Well, let’s just say that a synopsis is hovering in my near future. I’m not looking forward to the painful process of writing it, but I know that, in the end, I’ll understand much more about the story.

Which is always a positive.

The book that scared the crud outta me

Once upon an autumn, I was a lone weirdo in a gothic Texas family. Like, I read a lot of Stephen King and J.R.R. Tolkien, and everybody else in my family went bow-hunting and two-stepping and listened to Merle Haggard. My parents clearly didn't know how to shop for me, and my newspaper route paid crap money, so I supplied my book habit at yard sales and the public library five-bucks-for-everything-you-can-fit-into-a-paper-sack sale.

I wasn't old enough to stay at home on the long weekends when the family all went deer hunting, so I got hauled along to leases out west of San Antonio, usually some rocky windswept ranch, usually to murder wildlife, which was very much not my thing.

On one such trip, I brought along one of those library-sale paper sacks full of treasures books.

One of those books was called The Amityville Horror.

The rest of the camp went out on a hunt right before twilight, because deer come out to forage at sundown, and that's apparently the best time to kill them. If someone "got" a deer--i.e., shot one-- they had to wait until the hunt was over to go out and find the unlucky creature and, if it wasn't dead yet, put it out of its misery. Sometimes the search-and-finish could last for hours, long after dark.

I almost always stayed behind in the camper. And read books. It was glorious.

Except that one time. With that one book. 

I didn't know it then, but the evening hunt was pretty successful. Several deer were "got," and several searches ensued. I was alone in the camp with only the wind for company for miles and miles of dark Texas night. Just me and my delicious readable.

I considered myself fairly brave as far as books went. At least, I hadn't read one that stopped me from reading others. King and Koontz and Poe and Susan Cooper, not to mention all those collections of ghost ship stories and unsolved mysteries, had inured me to losing my shit over a book. I mean, they were just books. Just in my mind. All made up, fantasy stuff. 

Right?

So I snuggled down in a sleeping bag, cracked open The Amityville Horror, and read blithely, bravely, decadently.

For those who haven't read the book or seen the movie (movies?) this starts off innocently enough. Normalish family moves into a house. It's a nice house, kind of fancy even, with a boat house. But (SPOILERS!) it's haunted as hell, and freaky stuff starts happening, and the dad goes a little crazy, and suddenly there's a demon pig in a rocking chair up in the attic. 

Which was when something scratched on the side of the camper. 

I kid you not. Something was out there. Scratching. Low, near the ground. Right below my camper window. A sound that was not the wind. It was close.

Scratch, scratch.

Remember, every human person was out in the night wilderness killing Bambi.

So what was scratching out there?

I sure as hell wasn't going to go outside and investigate. And I could not, could not just keep reading.

Demon. Pig.

That was totally a demon pig outside.

I closed that book, shoved it way, way down the sleeping bag, and huddled there in the camper, listening. Terrified. For hours.

Family got back eventually, skinned their kills, and iced down the meat, and then we all went to bed. Next morning, after I slept not at all, I woke up and checked out the side of the camper.

There were scratches on the side. True fact.

Never did finish that book.

(Happy Halloween, y'all.)