Lilith Saintcrow

First, the serious: Jim C. Hines on reporting sexual harassment in the SFF community. The comments also mention Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear, which I also can’t recommend enough.

Then, the fun! Would you like to win a signed (in the US) or free (outside the US) copy of my just-released Angel Town? Or a copy of fellow Dame Keri Arthur’s Darkness Rising? Or would you, perchance, like a $15 Amazon gift certificate? Would you?

Well, you’re in luck! Just head over to the Deadline Dames’ latest Release Day Giveaway. All you have to do to get a chance to win is comment there. The Dames, we believe in making it easy to win.

We’re cool like that.

While you’re there, you can also find tons of other cool things, like the Readers on Deadline contests and helpful writing/publishing advice. And as soon as we figure out how to give out pie over the Internet, we’ll probably do that too.

Because we’re Dames. And Dames rock.

*clears throat*

Angel Town, the last of the Jill Kismet series (for now) is now shipping from Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, and Amazon.

She wakes up in her own grave. She doesn’t know who put her there, she doesn’t know where she is, and she has no friends or family.

Jill Kismet.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be hunched in a corner shaking, as is my usual wont on release days. You’d think they would get easier to handle, but no–I feel the same fierce anxiety each time.

Over and out!

Attention Selene and Nikolai fans! The story of Selene’s return to Saint City, Just Ask, is now available in the Mammoth Book of Hot Romance! I hope you like it.

Also, I’ve updated the FAQ, the Strange Angels page, and the Jill Kismet page. Preorder information for Reckoning and Angel Town is now live on those pages.

A lot of you are asking me about audiobooks, especially for the Kismet series. I do not know when or if specific books will be released on audio. I’m sorry, I just don’t know.

I’m still sore and hobbling from the fall I took earlier this week, so that’s about all she wrote. (Literally. Ha ha. I kill me.) I’m gonna go take some ibuprofen and brace myself for climbing.

It is just way too bright and sunny today. And it’s a good thing I’m damn stubborn, or I would have quit after three miles today and not had that awesome endorphin-kick runner’s high. Not to mention the drift of honeysuckle, the cheerful “good morning”s from other runners–I content myself with a “Morning!” in return, because I can’t be cheerful while struggling to stay upright and moving. I would have also missed having the shaded park all to myself for a few glorious circuits. That was nice.

So, announcements!

* If you’ve ever wondered how Selene returned to Saint City, you can read the brand-new Selene and Nikolai story, Just Ask in the upcoming Mammoth Book of Hot Romance.

* Also upcoming is Reckoning, the final book in the Strange Angels series. The end of August will see a bindup of bboks one and two, Strange Angels and Betrayals with an all-new, lovely cover.

* November will also see the final Jill Kismet book, Angel Town.

* You can now buy all five of the Dante Valentine novels in one smoking-hot omnibus. (Personal demon not included, sorry.) Also, Graphic Audio has released parts one and two of Working For The Devil, I believe part 1 of Dead Man Rising is also available.

* I will be attending SpoCon in August. Not quite sure what my schedule will look like, but I’ll be there on panels etc. I will also be at the Cedar Hills Crossing Powells annual SF/F Authorfest in ?November?, more details on that as it gets closer.

* There’s an interview with me up over at the Gatekeeper’s Post.

* I can’t really talk about this yet, but it’s up on Amazon. Tempty tempty.

* A big “welcome home” shout-out to TP, back from the wilds of Europe. *evil wink*

…I’m sure there’s something I’ve forgotten, but I haven’t even finished my coffee yet, so forgive me. Off I go to find a name that means “a hunter” for a wooden garden-boy. He wants Calhoun, but I’m not sure he should have it. He’s not the protagonist, so he doesn’t really get what he wants as far as names.

Damn characters. Over and out.

The good news is, I’m up to the lower limit of my pre-injury speed during my morning runs. The bad news is, I’m only allowed to run three miles. Two steps forward, one step back. At least I’m running again, and the endorphins are smoothing out jagged edges. Thank God.

I am slowly chipping away at reading Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy. The first book (Titus Groan) I only made my way through by the skin of my teeth. The second, Gormenghast, is already much more palatable. I suspect this was where the story wanted to start anyway. I am completely in shameful love with Steerpike; he is such a marvelous Machiavellian with perfectly-nuanced motivations. And Peake’s naming of his characters! By far this is the aspect I enjoy most. Prunesquallor the doctor (who I suspect very much is Peake’s unconscious authorial insertion, even though Titus seems like a more-conscious one), Deadyawn the Headmaster, Flay and Swelter, Sepulchrave the Earl of Groan–the names, they do EVERYTHING.

Also, I tremble to report I’ve finished the second round of revisions on Angel Town. I feel…ambivalent about this. The process of saying goodbye to Jill as a character is a pretty damp one. The snapback of finishing a book is compounded by the snapback of finishing a whole series. I’ll send the revisions off later this afternoon. I am giving myself that long to bid farewell.

Anyway, the spring rains are moving in, there are errands to be done, and I really should do something about the hoovering and the laundry that piled up while I was working in sprints this weekend to get the revisions done. That might help the spinning engine in my head wind down a bit.

See you around, dear Readers.