Friends,

I was saddened and horrified by the news of the Japanese earthquake/tsunami. I wish that there was more I could do. Unfortunately, I’m a bit cash poor these days.

Instead, I’d like to throw it out to you all. If you donate on behalf of the Japanese victims, I’ll send you a signed/inscribed copy of BLOOD HEAT.

Just donate, send me a copy of your receipt via email along with your name, snail mail addy and I’ll send the book to you.

Some organizations:
Doctors Without Borders
Action Against Hunger
Google Crisis Response
Habitat for Humanity

You may donate to any charity, the links above are just suggestions.

This offer will be in place until the end of March or until I run out of copies.

Note: I’m happy to send books internationally, though you may be responsible for customs duties on your end.

The Facebook virtual event for Blood Heat launch day is still going strong!! Stop by and leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of the latest Blood Lines book.

Other places you can find me this week:

Spooky Legends @ Dark Faerie Tales (you can sign up for the giveaway there, too!); read Tucker Kelly’s tale of his encounter with Springheel Jack!

Spotlight Urban Fantasy author at RT Book Reviews (through the end of the week!); read a special author message about the origins of Rio Seco.

Later on in the week, I’ll have an interview up at Amberkatze’s Book Blog.

Well, not exactly. It’s more the virtual places I’ve been this week and the places I’ll be going to as part of Blood Heat launch week.

Cool Stuff Up Now

• Arantze at Fiction Kingdom has an interview with me, as well as a review.
• Review of Blood Heat at Amberkatze’s Book Blog

Tuesday, 10/26

• Blood Heat launch day, w00t!
• Spooky Legends is on at All Things Urban Fantasy & Dark Faerie Tales.*
  • It’s a really neat event, as your favorite characters talk about well-known urban legends. I’ll be there on Tuesday, October 26 as Tucker Kelly, Keira’s brother, tells us about his encounter with Springheel Jack.
• Facebook virtual event: Stop by, leave a comment, enter to win a copy of Blood Heat
• Spotlight article at RT Book Reviews (full week)
• Interview at Amberkatze’s Book Blog

WHEW! Glad It’s all virtual. Hope to see you all on the Intarwebz!

* I was vastly amused when I saw this title appear @ Tor.com’s blog today.

I’ve been saddened by the recent news of all these amazing kids killing themselves as a result of non-stop bullying. I don’t understand the hate. I’ve never understood the hate. Nor, do I understand the “they’re just teasing/they’re good kids” defense of the schools, the other parents. As Kate Harding so eloquently put it, they are assholes. She says it much better than I can.

As I read through Blood Heat while I’m working on Blood Sacrifice (book 5), I began to realize that the main contemporary storyline was about hate crimes–a certain type of hate crime. In each of my books, along with the long term story arc, I choose to write about a topic that resonates with me and is part of our “real” world. Blood Heat is about being different and unusual and out of place, and how that difference results in cruelty, hatred and yes, even death.

Being different is something that my protagonist, Keira empathizes with greatly. As a child, in Faery, she wasn’t like the rest, and therefore bullied, ignored, treated horribly. She never fit in, even when she was saved by her father and brought Above, to live amongst the other side of her family. They accepted and loved her, but she was mainstreamed into the human population where she was odd in too many ways. It’s the love of her best friend, Bea, who gets her through her childhood. Keira’s experience isn’t exactly mine, per se, but I get being different, being bullied and teased, being the outsider.

My family immigrated to the US from Cuba when I was not quite three years old. I spoke no English when I got here. By the time I was enrolled in kindergarten, I still spoke very little English, though my parents took to only speaking English to us at home so we’d assimilate. This was in the days before ESL and special classes to help immigrant children. To top it off, we tended to move every year, my father’s job taking us from city to city, state to state. Not a great way to become a part of a social group. In many ways, I learned a great deal–about people, about humanity. Somehow, I managed to get through junior high and high school. I learned how to watch and observe people. How to become “normal”, at least, how to keep my head down. It wasn’t until late high school, in Lago Vista, Texas (the town I based Rio Seco on), that I came into my own and became a stronger, independent person.

It’s no wonder that this is reflected in Keira’s life as I write. Though I don’t go into Keira’s specific background so much as the main throughline of Blood Heat, the same thing is happening to a werewolf pack in a nearby town. I’d not realized just how on target and current I was until this past week–as I continued to read horrific news items about teen suicides and bullying. Sadly, this isn’t a new thing, but just something that’s come into the news cycle–perhaps because of social networking, which shares information so quickly, reaching so many people. I’m glad that through my fictional works, I can address some of these issues, but sad that my fictional solution won’t work in the real world.

The only thing we can do is spread the word. Help stop the bullying in our own backyards. Teach tolerance, live tolerance, BE tolerant. To be different is to be amazing, unique, wonderful. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations–a principle from Star Trek – more than 40 years ago. Why then do we continue this hatred? This fear of being different?

Let’s celebrate our differences. Do something this week to show your uniqueness. Show you care.

OMG, all, I am utterly gobsmacked!!

RT Book Reviews has chosen Blood Heatas one of their top picks and given it a 4 1/2 star review.

Unfortunately, the actual page with the review is for subscribers only, but here’s the meat of it.

The Bloodline saga’s latest installment continues to follow Keira
Kelly’s evolution into the leader of a powerful clan. Lima has created
a highly intriguing cast of characters and set them in a world filled
with dangerous magic and deadly power struggles. Join the excitement
today!

You can also see it in this month’s issue, which should be on newstands now.

Author buddy Jaye Wells speaks in her recent post about the shame in not blogging regularly. I can only hang my head and agree with her. I *meant* to blog last week. I really, really did. But then there was work, and writing and cat acquisition and sinus migraines, and well…yeah, you get the picture. Next thing I knew, it was already a week later.

So, here I am with no excuses, just a bunch of random items that I found fun, amusing, awesome or just worthy of a look.

Best Rolling Stone cover EVER. (But I agree with Jaye’s sentiment that we can remove Sookie and add Alcide in the middle…yum!)

Hipmunk – a new way to do a travel search. I love the Gannt chart. Love the way you can sort the various trips. By agony, anyone?

A WordPress plugin update seems to have eaten, munged or otherwise destroyed code that produced some of my site pages. I fussed with it last night, but this is WAY above my not-so-l33t coding skills. I can pretty much troubleshoot ColdFusion and some .net, but .php + WordPress, not so mmuch. I’m going to have to take this to an expert.

Summer is nearly over, thank all the powers that be. DC area keeps getting hit with record-breaking weather events. I’m truly ready for Mother Nature to stop pissing on us. I mean, what did this town ever–oh wait, never mind. Uhm, just remember Nature, regular people live here, too, *not* just politicians!

The sister and I are already planning next year’s vacation. We won’t be going until sometime in early fall, probably September/October, but part of the fun is the planning. We’re going to Scotland!! Instead of hotels, we want to rent a cottage or something like that as our base of operations (somewhere in the countryside) and then drive/train to other sites. Top of our list: whisky tasting tours, Loch Ness and Orkney (for the standing stones). If any of you folks have suggestions, please pass them along. We love historical sites most of all! Oh, and we’re definitely taking the Jacobite steam train from Ft. William.

I’m going to do my best to blog more often and more regularly, but won’t make any promises. I will be doing at least some sort of giveaway nearer the BLOOD HEAT release day (October 26, mark your calendars!), so keep an eye out.

Also, look for my guest blog at the Lipstick Chronicles on August 29, where I muse about homonyms.

Wishing everyone a good end-of-summer!

I think I’ve said it before, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat it. I’m all for fan fiction: in my universe, in other people’s universes, etc. I don’t see it as an infringement, but as a deep abiding love of the work(s).

We authors used to think that, even if we were okay with fanfic using our characters, that we should avoid seeing/reading such fiction to avoid any possible lawsuits. I grokked that and figured, okay, sure. Makes sense. Only, now, I’ve changed my mind, especially after reading this thoughtful post by the Organization for Transformative Works. I’m a member of OTW and have been since its inception. I approve heartily of what they do and will continue to support them as long as I can.

I’ve got a fan fiction policy here on my site and after having read this article, I’m about to update it.

In other news: it’s Friday. Whee!!!

Sadly, my plans for the day got smashed by the universe. I woke up with a sinus headache and my amazing beta reader/BFF Carla, who was coming over to see the new place/talk writing with me/have dinner has been laid low by a bug. Alas, best made plans and such. Instead, I’ll spend today quietly reviewing galley proofs for BLOOD HEAT.

The buzz yesterday all over the office went somewhat like this: snow, snow?, Snow?, snOMG! EEEEK!! As the National Weather Service and the various area city leaders posted updates, sent emails, posted to Facebook, the forecast went from "hmm, heap big snow" to "HOLY CRAP WE’RE GETTING ELEVNTYMILLION FEET!"*

City government announced closings around noonish. Schools by 5 p.m. Area businesses prepared for The Worst. During my lunchtime run to Harris Teeter for bagels and snacks, I saw the beginnings of the locust horde forming–people with carts groaning under the load. Of course, it didn’t help that this Sunday there’s some sort of feetball game**. Reports abound from later-in-the-evening shoppers who arrived to find barren shelves. I get it, I do. This is the South, though in NoVA/DC/lower MD, it’s not quite as obvious. We’re not used to this much snow, especially since it’s the 2nd storm within the last couple of weeks, and expected to break records. Still, 3 days of being stuck at home? NOT the end of the world, folks.

I’m off work today, as I am all Fridays, so am looking on in amusement. I woke up at 7, deciding to chronicle the snOMG as it happens:

From snOMG!

7:00 a.m. – all quiet on the eastern front

Today, I’ll be working on my essay for A Taste of True Blood (SmartPop Books), also plan to do some relaxation – watch shows, DVDs, read, because, my pretties, I. AM. DONE. — with revisions to Blood Heat (from my editor’s notes). Emailed it to her and Mr. Agent Weds. night. whee!!  92, 647 words later. I harken back to when I started writing the book and despaired of ever getting to this point. Of the good, as I was reviewing the notes and working on the revisions, the muse hit me with the clue bat and I now have the main arc of Book 5 sussed. Now I can write the synopsis. whew!

My story for Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2 now has a plot. I knew I wanted to set it in San Antionio, using some of the myths/legends of the area. Thanks to some nifty books (Spirits of San Antonio and South Texas and The History and Mystery of the Menger Hotel) I now have a decent direction. Yay!

Of the amusing: The top song on my birthday was…

Why yes, I am an old fart–and happy to be here.

BLOOD HEAT, book 4 in the Blood Lines series is DONE! Emailed to agent and editor. Backed up to my usual spaces.

I am going to watch THE CLOSER and then take a nap!