I’ve just started posting a few things there (like my knitting, and some photos that I used as inspiration when I was writing TIN SWIFT) and I hope to continue making “boards” (kind of like photo albums) of the things that catch my eye.

So other than knitting and writing inspirations and recipes and books I love and other cool stuff, I also want to make one board that has all my book covers on it.  To make them look nice, I need a decent resolution on the covers. I suddenly realized the resolution of my covers are sort of hit-and-miss, even here on my own blog. (the horror!)

Therefore, I’m posting my book covers, so I can link to them on Pinterest. I know that sounds kind of silly, but well…there it is, lol.

And hey–if you’re on Pinterest, let me know, and I’ll totally follow you! But, you know, not in a creepy stalker kind of way….unless you like that sort of thing.

Edited to add: Click here to follow me on Pinterest.

BUT today is Wednesday, and Wednesday means an excerpt from MAGIC WITHOUT MERCY, which comes out April 3rd.  Here’s a super-quick clip:

Excerpt: MAGIC WITHOUT MERCY

Zay parked the car and we sat there for a bit.

“Plan?” Shame asked. “Storm the castle?”

“Walk in nice and slow,” Zayvion said. “Maybe buy a cup of coffee.”

“I’d kill for a cup of coffee,” I said.

“What, like use a gun on someone? The horror.” Shame swung out of the car.

“Maybe I’ll start with him,” I mused.

“You’d have to get behind me,” Zayvion said.

I promise the excerpt will be longer next Wednesday!

This year, I’ve been trying to better schedule my days.  Work will always keep me busy (hope, hope!) and that’s as it should be. But I want to have a little “living” time too, and I’m doing what I can to see that it happens.

For one thing, I will be attending Emerald City Comic Con at the end of March.  I’ve been meaning to go for years, but I’m actually going to do it this year!  I’m going just to have fun and see what a comic con is all about.  I’ll try to take plenty of pictures.

I know I’m not the only one who forgets to make time to do the things I love.  Are you like that too?  When was the last time you went to the library (assuming you love going to the library)?  Or took a day trip?  When was the last time you picked up some hobby you’d set aside and thought, “oh, right. NOW I remember why I loved doing this so much”? Or tuned into your favorite show, or took a walk in a park?

If it’s been awhile, well, I’m sending you a little wish in hope that you can do a fun little thing again soon.  Life goes by pretty quickly.  I wouldn’t want any of us to miss out on smelling the wildflowers* growing by the road.

*unless, of course, we’re allergic to them. In that case, we will just admire them from afar.

photo: copyright (c) 123 RF

Since MAGIC WITHOUT MERCY will be out in just over seven weeks, I thought it might be fun to start posting snippets.  This is a tricky book to pull excerpts from without going all spoilery everywhere, since it’s the second-to-last book in the series, but I shall try my best.

Let’s start things off with something light:

Excerpt: MAGIC WITHOUT MERCY

Shame strolled in with a shoe box. “Here we are.”

“You put them in a shoe box?” Maeve asked. “Shamus, these are invaluable. Heirlooms.”

“Which is why I stuck them in a shoe box. Safekeeping.”

He placed the box on the coffee table and lifted the lid. The soft scent of roses filled the room.

“I didn’t know you’d kept these, Maeve,” Victor said. “Hugh did fine work.”

“Yes, he did,” she said wistfully. “But as you can see, I didn’t keep them. Shamus did. So then, do they still work?”

“I think so.” Shame reached into the box and pulled out a long string with square black metal beads strung on it. “We have enough for”—he quickly counted—“six of us. So one of us will go without and buddy up. Draw straws?”

“Let’s see if they work first,” Hayden said.

Shame unstrung the beads and handed each person twelve beads and a silver bracelet with a channel carved into it so that the beads could slide into the channel.

Everyone got busy slipping the beads, apparently in a specific order, into their bracelet. Shame looked at Zayvion and me. “Which of you wants to wear it?”

“Allie,” Zayvion said quickly.

“No,” I said, “not Allie. If it’s got magic in it, I’ll probably break out in a rash or worse. And even if it doesn’t, I have no idea how it works. Is it like a phone?”

“Not at all,” Shame said with a grin.

“It’s a code,” Zayvion said. He stepped over so that he was right in front of me, head bent, the bracelet he was threading the beads into between us. “The beads represent numbers and the numbers represent letters or sentences in a book.”

“What book?” I asked.

“Winnie-the-Pooh.”

“And you’re not joking,” I said.

His lips quirked into a smile. “This isn’t magic, Allie. This is a little trick Shame’s dad put together when Shame was a kid. They actually run on batteries.” He tipped the bracelet so I could see the inside of the band where a little watch battery was inserted. “And the signal is on a frequency that gets boosted by magic. If you can recite Winnie-the-Pooh, you can decipher the coded messages sent and received.”

“Can you recite Winnie-the-Pooh?”

“In my sleep.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “You know I’ll find every way possible to tease you about that, right?”

“I have no doubt.”

In bookstores April 3, 2012

I finally finished them! (It may have taken me over a year to knit these in my snippets of free time. Thank goodness Rinda was willing to be patient!)  I ended up making three pairs, because I was worried the wool in the first two pairs would be too scratchy. The last pair are super soft.

Rinda just got the gloves today  (and says she loves them! Yay!) which means I can share photos. Links to the patterns are also included.

Rasen by Izumi Ouchi

Pattern in Fibertarian (Japanese)

Pattern on Ravelry (English)

Helix by Kira K Designs

Pattern web page

Ravelry pattern

Fire and Ice by Roz Marcotte

Ravelry pattern

The whole kit and kaboodle:

What do you think? Pretty good patterns? I like the green pair (Helix) so much, I might knit myself a set someday. You know.  In my free time. 

New winners* of the ARC copies of MAGIC WITHOUT MERCY are:

KT Clapsadl, who said: Thank you for the awesome contest! Very generous!

and

Stephanie Mitchell, who said: Wow, thanks for offering this, I’m so looking forward to this next installment!!!

Please contact me with your email address by Tuesday of next week.  If I don’t hear from you, I will redraw winners again.

*if the two original winners do contact me, we can work out another prize.

Thanks to the sharp eye of reader, Keri, it has been discovered that Amazon has the incorrect release date listed for MAGIC ON THE LINE.

MAGIC ON THE LINE is book 7 in the series and came out last November (three months ago).  It has the cool straight-at-you cover of Allie.  Um….this one:

Amazon has it listed as being released April 3, 2012, and that it can only be pre-ordered, which is incorrect.  Perhaps not coincidentally, April 3 is when book 8, MAGIC WITHOUT MERCY comes out.  MAGIC WITHOUT MERCY has the leather jacket cover of Allie.  This one:

We are working on getting that date changed on MAGIC ON THE LINE so it is available for order again.  In the meantime, I do believe you can order it through Barnes and Noble, or other online retailers.

Housekeeping Item #2

There are still two winners who haven’t contacted me for the ARC of Magic Without Mercy.  If you haven’t checked to see if you won yet, here’s the link to click on.

Housekeeping Item #3

Did I mention I finished the (very rough) draft of book 9, MAGIC FOR A PRICE?  Well…I did! It is a big ol’ messy thing right now, but at least the bones are in place.  I’m cleaning it up this week, and hope to have it off to my editor soon.  And then….I shall begin some other projects I have in mind.  As soon as I hear news about those, I’ll be sure to share!

I wish I had a hundred copies to giveaway, but today I only have six. (Stay tuned. When I get finished copies of the book, I will do another giveaway.)

I have powered up the random number generator and today’s winners are:

• Mskiara, who said: I seriously thought I commented on this already, but I could be crazy. (Verdict: DUH. a)nyway – would love to read this ahead of schedule and pimp it out to everyone I know (and everyone I don’t).
• Mishel who said: Count me in! I would love to win a copy! Thanks for the giveaway!
• Jessi R, who said: Yay, great giveaway. Thank you.
• rissatoo, who said: Ooh! I can hardly wait to read this! I’m gonna cross my fingers *so hard* in hopes that ups my chances at an ARC! Thanks for the giveaway chance!
• LianakayLklmoore who said: WOOT! Love an international giveaway Love this series – thanks for the comp.
• Brenda who said:I love your series and would love to have an ARC book. Thanks for your writing!

The ARCs don’t have the pretty cover, nor the excerpt from the next book in the back.  They DO have typos and a few other little errors since they are advanced copies and haven’t gone through the final proofing stage yet.

I am giving away six (6) copies, and will mail internationally.  Just leave a comment here in the comment section, and I will pull winners Thursday the 26th around midnight my time.

Good luck, and don’t forget to check back to see if you’ve won!

P.S. I still haven’t heard from the winners of my UK MAGIC IN THE BLOOD giveaway,  (please click HERE  to see if you won that giveaway).

Yesterday I got news from my editor that she was very happy with the changes.  Which means that other than a few additions/subtractions in copy edits, and then wee changes in proofs, TIN SWIFT is mostly ready to go.

This is very exciting to me. One, because TIN SWIFT was a challenging book to write in the time constraints of the deadline (the steampunk books write slower and revise slower for me, due to the research involved).

Two, because it was so crazy fun to write this story and see how the characters would find their way in this American West world of steam, airships, monsters, witches, curses, love, and oh, yes…revenge.  I’m so glad my editor had fun with it too!

And now I am back at working on the next Allie Beckstrom book, MAGIC FOR A PRICE.  I’m having a lot of fun on this book too!  The difference here, is it is the close of the nine-book series.

When I first got the news that I’d sold the first book in the Allie series, I toasted the sale with my amazing first readers, friends, and family.  I think I need to start a tradition of how to celebrate the end of a series too.

Any suggestions?  Should I make a special dinner, fly a lantern, buy a gift? What would you do to celebrate?