• A touch of frost …

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    In addition to finishing the revisions on Elemental Assassin #4, I’ve also written a young adult book. I’m calling it A Touch of Frost, and it focuses on Gwen Frost, a Gypsy girl with the gift of psychometry — or the ability to know an object’s history just by touching it.

    After her mom’s death, Gwen gets shipped off to Mythos Academy, a school for the descendants of ancient warriors, like Spartans, Amazons, Valkyries, and more. When a student is murdered, Gwen decides to use her Gypsy gift to find out who killed the other girl and why. I’m pitching the book as Veronica Mars meets the movie 300 (but without Gerard Butler’s man-abs, unfortunately.)

    I’m not sure what, if anything, will happen with this book. There’s always a chance that my agent could hate the book, or that she could submit it to editors and no one will buy it. That’s a very real threat these days, since editors/publishers are cutting back, just like everyone else is. It’s always a little scary being an author, since it’s not a secure job at all and so many things are out of your control. But it’s even more so now, given the crappy economy.

    It seems to me like the young adult market is still heavily focused on vampires and werewolves these days, so I’m not sure where a mythology book like mine would fit in. I know that the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan has been wildly successful, so that gives me some hope.

    Regardless, if nothing else, finishing A Touch of Frost has proved to me that I can write a young adult book. It’s not as easy as it looks. Especially after writing five Gin Blanco books. Let’s just say that I had to tone the sex, violence, and language way down from the Elemental Assassin series. But in some ways, Gwen Frost is just as kick-butt as Gin is. And hey, there’s a magic sword named Vic in the book. Because you can’t write a mythology book without having some kind of sword or magical weapon in there. šŸ˜‰

    Anyway, we shall see what happens …

  • Revised … for now …

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    So I’ve finally finished the revisions on Elemental Assassin #4 and shipped those off to my editor. If she likes them, the book will move on to the copy editor. I’m just glad that it’s off my desk — for now anyway!

    Still, no title or firm release date for book 4 (or for book 5 either), but those should be coming soon. I’ll post those here on the blog as soon as I get them.

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    More free Elemental Assassin short stories …

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    The release date on Web of Lies is drawing ever closer — May 25. To whet readers’ appetites, I’veĀ written a couple of free Elemental Assassin short stories — Web of Death and Web of Deceit.

    Web of Death takes place in between the events of Spider’s Bite andĀ Web of Lies and focuses on what happens when Gin gets some unexpected visitors one night.

    Web of Deceit is another prequel story about Gin’s first solo job as the Spider when she was a teenager and is told from Fletcher Lane’s point of view.

    There are no major spoilers inĀ either one of theĀ stories, and both of them can be found on the Excerpts page, along with Spider’s Bargain, the first free short story that I wrote. I just thought writing the stories would be something fun and cool that I could do for readers, since I’ve gotten such great responseĀ to Spider’s Bite. I hope everyone enjoys the free stories and can check outĀ Web of Lies when it comes out as well.

    Happy reading! šŸ˜‰

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    An epic clash …

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    There have been a whole lot of remakes lately, and one of the latest is the new Clash of the Titans movie. It hasn’t gotten fantastic reviews, but part of me still wants to see it.

    Why? Because every time we had a movie day when I was in school, we watched one of three movies — The Princess Bride, The Neverending Story, or, you guessed it, Clash of the Titans. So I have a certain nostalgic fondness for Harry Hamlin, stop motion animation, and a golden owl. Inconceivable, isn’t it? šŸ˜‰

    I think this is part of the reason why remakes are so popular these days. You have folks like me who have fond memories of the original TV show or movie — a built-in audience who will go to the theater and tune in to see the remake. Easy money, in other words.

    Sometimes, the remakes are better; sometimes, they’re worse. And sometimes, the original should just be left alone. I hear there’s a Karate Kid remake coming out this summer. I’m sorry, Jackie Chan, but you are no Mr. Miyagi.

    There are some other remakes in the works too — The A-Team movie, of course, along with Hawaii Five-O and The Rockford Files. I’ll watch all three of these because I’m a sucker for a good action movie or a cool detective show. And yeah, I’ll probably go see the new Karate Kid too. Who knows? Maybe the villains will still be the guys from Cobra Kai. We shall see …

    What about you guys? Which remakes are you looking forward to this year? Share in the comments.