Hello folks! Just wanted to show you the video interview that Rachael Herron and I did at Romantic Times, which is quite the love fest. She’s an awesome lady, and thanks to RT for letting us do this! Fun!
Monthly Archive for July, 2011
Hello mah beauties,
Today is July 26th, which means it’s the day that Amazon ships book four, Eye of the Tempest! It’s already been out all over the place in bookstores, and it’s not quite out in e-reader (that will be August 1, the “official” release date). But if you pre-ordered a hard copy, it should be winging its way to you as of now.
So yay! Release Part 1 is in full effect. Sorry those of you with e-readers have to wait till August 1, but it’ll come shortly, I promise. 
As for me, I’ve had the loveliest week! On Wednesday of last week, I had an absolutely hilarious dinner with UK writers Karen Mahoney and Suzanne McLeod, and with American expat writer Stacia Kane. Here are some photos of the evening. First up are Suzanne and Karen, looking gorgeous:
And next we have Stacia and me, looking like fierce (if giggling) creatures:
As for the giggling, Stacia might have been grabbing my boob. Again.
Thursday night I had dinner and watched a movie with Dr. Ruth. We watched Black Swan, which was very creepy. It made me frightened of ballet and also made me want to eat cake.
Friday I headed north to meet my friend and travel up to Whitby on the Northeast coast of England. I’d been pretty sure I wanted to set the final battle of the fifth book in Whitby, and was convinced it was perfect pretty much as soon as I saw the place. Whitby is absolutely gorgeous, with a seaside charm all of its own. In fact, it reminded me much more of Eastport, ME, than it did other British seaside cities, such as Brighton. This makes sense, as it’s really a working fishing village with a side in tourism, rather than having an economy based on tourism. But it was an entirely stunning place, made even funnier by the Dracula connection (Bram Stoker has quite a few scenes set in or based on Whitby) which brings loads of goths to the area. So one minute you’d be walking past a knot of bearded old fishermen smoking pipes, then there’d be a chubby goth couple in full regalia eating fish and chips.
But the book’s ending is really coming together in my mind. I kept playing through different scenes as we were in Whitby, and the place was so powerful an inspiration I couldn’t shut off my brain, even when we were in Scarborough for a day trip. Luckily I didn’t need much mental power, however, as I was being well taken care of. It was my ideal trip, really, as I was with someone who was originally from that area, and he was the perfect tour guide. All I had to do was wander along behind him and ooh and aah at the sights, a role I rarely get to indulge in, but which I love.
As usual, I took almost no photos, but here are a few that were too weird or funny not to take, plus I did remember to take a few photos for use in the writing. So they’ll be your obscure Fury spoilers for the day!
This picture was from the Whitby museum, full of all sorts of insane shit, like sea bishops. It also has an actual HAND OF GLORY, probably the creepiest thing I’ve ever clapped eyes upon. It was also great timing, as I’d just read Juliet Blackwell’s fabulous Hexes and Hemlines, which utlilizes a Hand of Glory. Here’s a very bad picture of the hand, in all its horrific splendor:
It really was repulsive. Equally cool, if slightly less repulsive, was a weird Victorian Steampunky device made to foretell weather. It looked cool, yes, but it did involve tons of leeches, which lent the device its own slightly repulsive nature. Anyway, its name gave me inspiration for book six, just in case I’m not allowed to use Tempestt Bledsoe:
TEMPEST PROGNOSTICATOR! It’ll be a steampunk Jane, naturally.
Finally, here are some pictures of the abbey, as a bit of cryptic Fury spoiler. Enjoy and see you soon. Londoners, don’t forget my Forbidden Planet signing this Saturday!
Your moment of cryptic Fury spoiler begins now:
Hi folks! Just a quick update to tell you that from now until July 27th, Tempest Rising is an Amazon Sunshine Deal at only $1.99 on Kindle! So if you’ve been wondering whether to give Jane a shot, now is the time. You can also admire the new Kindle covers Orbit has done for the series:
In pimpage news, Sophie Littlefield has another of her awesome dystopian zombie fictions releasing this week. Exciting! Here’s the cover with a link to Amazon:
The pimp hand has smacked! And now I must write a book. *le sigh*
Hello mah sweets,
I’m writing to you from the comfort of my flat in London, where I’m curled up on my couch, watching the rain and very much enjoying a quiet night in. I had a fabulous week last week–a friend was visiting, and we did loads of stuff, including a trip to Brighton to visit my awesome US cover artist, Sharon Tancredi. My dear friend, Jana, was also in town and we got to see her. And we had a great night out with one of my favorite Orbit pals, Philip Palmer, and a group he put together, including Mike Carey and other SF/F and comic writers. All together, it was a fabulous night and an equally fabulous very long weekend!
But today was back to the grindstone! Luckily, my visitor came just when I got officially stuck in my manuscript. I’m in the final few chapters, and I have vague notes in my outline, such as “Big Battle Scene,” which are outrageously unhelpful. But I had a nice distraction for five whole days, and when I sat down to write today everything made so much more sense. So another chapter is written and the final chapters are much more thoroughly outlined.
This week, then, will be mucho writing-o, but it’s not all sweat and tears. Last night I saw my friend from high school, Erik Tomlin, who is hilarious. Today I had a lovely long lunch with my editor here in the UK, Anna Gregson, and tomorrow I’m getting together with a bunch of writers, including Karen Mahoney, Stacia Kane, and Suzanne McLeod. Stacia’s spending the night so I’m sure there will be shenanigans involving vodka, fire, maybe one of Stacia’s switchblades, and definitely a certain self-pubbed erotic hot mess that makes us pee ourselves laughing. Ohhh yeah, I’m looking at you, PE!
Thursday I’m having a dinner and movies date with Dr. Ruth, then bright and early the next day I head up north to meet my friend for a final bout of research for the book. And by “research” I mean wandering around, eating pub food, and being generally debauched. In all seriousness, however, I will also be scouting out sites for the final two locales of book five. I’ll not tell you where they are, however, to keep you guessing, but mayhaps I’ll post a pic or two on twitter to give you evil, vaguely spoilery hints.
So that’s my life, here. It’s going stupidly fast, and I’m already dreading leaving. I love it here, I have so many friends, and London’s just a great place to be. But the good news is that when I DO return to the States, it’s to two very fun conventions, the first of which is in Denver.
Now, Denver is also host to the beauteous and wonderful Mario Acevedo and Jeanne Stein, and Mario was his typically generous self in organizing us a bunch of non-convention shindigs, to make the visit to Colorado even more fun. He’s organized a Mucho Mojo tour for us, and here’s the flier he made. I’m stupidly excited to be a part of all of this:
The first event is Thursday, August 4th, from 7-9 pm at Madwine Bar and Novo Coffee. I’m apparently contributing talismans and bringing my mojo, but considering how jetlagged I’m gonna be you might all have to buy me some drinks to get me going. Like nine. Nine drinks should do it.
The next event is another signing with a load of other local authors and authors in for RomCon, and that’s Sunday, August 7, 4 pm at Broadway Book Mall.
So print off the flier and come see us!
Hello folks! It’s with huge excitement that I announce I’ll be taking part in Orbit UK’s London Summer Signing!
It’s at Forbidden Planet, London on Saturday 30th July, 3-4pm, and I’ll be with Tim Lebbon, Philip Palmer, and Simon Morden.
More details are on the Forbidden Planet events page, here, and on my own appearances page, here.
I’m so happy I get to do this, and I hope to see some of my UK fans there. Forbidden Planet is the ultimate Nerd Mecca, so I’m having a bit of a nerdgasm that I get to sign there. It’s truly an honor, and I’m looking forward to meeting everyone involved.
This week will be Officially Crazy, with some guests and fun and maybe a naughty field trip at a very swank hotel. Or, it’s what I like to call VACATION, bitches. I wish y’all could join me.
Hello darlings,
Things have been glorious here in the UK. I’ve spent loads of time with friends since I got in, and it’s been so nice! Last week found me doing lots of catching up with people, and it’s been lovely to have a chance to do so. Tonight I’m going to my friend Linda’s in Notting Hill, where we’ll hang out till our friend Judith arrives from Belgium. Tomorrow we’re throwing our friend Kristin a baby shower, which is not at all a British thing, so everyone’s quite excited.
I’ve finally gotten some work done on my rough draft, and I’m super inspired for Other Projects from being back here. Jane’s series is wrapping up with book six, but I’ve got loads of other things on various burners, simmering away. Meanwhile, in very exciting news, Orbit UK has relaunched my series with an entirely new look. These covers are totally different from Sharon’s, and I love both looks. Both are so quirky, which I think is great for the series. Here’s the UK cover for Tempest Rising:
And Tracking the Tempest:
And Tempest’s Legacy:
And, finally, Eye of the Tempest:
Release dates for these are as follows:
Tempest Rising and Tracking: Both out August 4, 2011
Tempest’s Legacy: September 1, 2011
Eye of the Tempest: October 7, 2011
Tempest’s Fury: July 5, 2012
So for those of you who have been so patiently waiting for book 3, it will be out soon, with book four shortly thereafter!
In other exciting news, I will be doing a London appearance. It’s gonna be a big event that should be loads of fun, and will include other authors. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got official word of everything that’s going on, so watch this space!
In terms of pimpage, there were a few releases I FORGOT to pimp with the last batch. I am horrified at such a slip up, and my pimp hand burns with shame.
First of all, the ever lovely Dakota Cassidy has just released Burning Down the Spouse, which looks adorable:
Dakota’s offering these very cool trading cars, featuring her adorable mug:
For details on how to get the trading card, email her at dakota(at)dakotacassidy(dot)com.
Finally, last but certainly not least of our awesome Month o’ League Releases, Michelle Rowen has released the smexily-covered Bloodlust:
So go forth and read! I am now off to zumba. Yes, I’m so addicted I’m doing zumba in London. YAY FOR ZUMBA.
Hello my friends! It’s now Sunday evening of my first weekend back in London, and I’m happy as a pig in shit. Which I’m told makes for a very happy pig, although I really don’t know if that’s true. But I do know I’m one happy Nikki.
The flight over was fine, although I did arrive to a bit of a debacle with the keys to my holiday flat, as I blogged about over at the Pens. But it was sorted out by early evening, and within a few hours I was unpacked and ready to start cooking for my friends.
I have a secret, paradoxical domestic streak. I don’t think I want children, and I’m ambivalent about marriage as an institution, but I love nothing more than making people food and serving them and pouring them drinks and making sure they’re comfortable. It’s odd, and I have no idea where it comes from, but I’ve learned to embrace my strange drive to nestle people into my domestic bosom. So within hours of unpacking I had my lovely friends Ruth and Linda over, as well as Linda’s brother who was visiting from Dublin. All I did was make salad and heat up pizza, but it was so nice to catch up and know I didn’t have to run around that night. Then we had delicious cherries and pots of delicious chocolate ganache, which was heavenly.
The next day I had a proper day out with Ruth, and our friends visiting from Edinburgh, Sarah and Robin. We went to Hampton Palace, which was Henry VIII’s stomping grounds. Indeed, Dr. Ruth has become rather obsessed with the Tudors, the TV series, and she especially enjoyed all the large-booted stomping performed by the actor playing Henry.
It was a gorgeous day out, and a great day for a picnic on the front lawn:
After which, we did the whole palace and gardens. I really enjoyed it, although there were a few rooms in which they piped in “authentic” sounds and smells. I was fine with the sounds, but the faux-beef stew smell in the first rooms of the kitchens nearly made me hurl. Any nausea, however, was quickly eradicated by the rest of the kitchens, which had live cooking demos with recipes from the time. Not only were the demos interesting, but all of the cooks were sporting proper period costumes, including these padded cod pieces that looked incredibly, hilariously vulgar underneath their aprons. It was a definite moment of “Is that a rolling pin under your apron or are you just happy to see me?”
As usual, we were definitely the least mature people in the room, and couldn’t stop giggling. But all in all the palace was gorgeous, and very inspiring. I especially liked the maze:
And here’s a picture from the gardens that is actually a cryptic spoiler from book 5, Tempest’s Fury:
After leaving Hampton Palace, we headed back to Islington and one of my favorite restaurants here, the Afghan Kitchen. It’s tiny and super cheap and I adore it. We ate ridiculous amounts of food, then headed down the street for one last drink at the pub:
It was a place I’ve been to often with Dr. Ruth, and it was nice to be back with her:
We went our separate ways after that, but Ruth and I were back at Waterloo Station the next day to head out to Whitton for a BBQ at the house of Dr. and Mrs. Whisky, and the Wee Dram. It was a lovely long day spent with good friends, and I had such a great time. The Whiskys are great, and Dr. Whisky has been very busy with his new job as Global Ambassador of Balvenie. Not too shabby, right? Meanwhile, Mrs. Whisky is expecting ANOTHER Wee Dram, so she’s not been slacking off, either.
Another uni friend, Steve, was also in attendance, and he’s been doing awesome work studying glaciars in Greenland. It was great to catch up with everyone and find out what everyone’s up to. I’m lucky to have such fascinating friends, and the conversation ranged from places to visit in Austin, TX, to the drinking culture in Korea.
Tomorrow I’ve got to get some writing done, but in the evening my friend Jo is coming round to stay for a few days. I can’t wait to catch up, again. Then I should have a fairly quiet (and hopefully productive) week till the weekend, when we’re throwing Mrs. Whisky a baby shower.
So all is going very well here, and I’m so happy I’ve come over. I’m sure I’ll have some more updates for you shortly, including some very exciting things that are happening over in the UK with Jane and her series. I’ll let you know as soon as I can!
Now, however, it’s time for some sleep. Book five calls, and I might be writing a very sexy scene with Jane and a certain someone . . . who do you hope that someone might be?
OH, and Happy Fourth of July!!! Watch some fireworks for me!
