I am so excited! After more than a year, I decided it was time for my first novel, Urdaisunia, to have a cover refresh. I love the picture on the original cover, but I felt like it doesn't do much to convey what the story is about. So I asked Mominur Rahman, who did the Daughter of the Wildings covers, to do a new cover for Urdaisunia, and I love what he came up with! Here's the full wrap-around illustration, without text: And here's the ebook version, with text: The paperback edition is uploaded and awaiting file approval, the ebook version will roll out across the various retailers over the next few days or so. And to celebrate the new cover, here's a sneak peek into Urdaisunia for the Weekend Sneak Peek! After being parted from Rashali under difficult circumstances, Eruz finds her in a Scorpion Nest (group of Urdai rebels) that's about to be raided by the Sazars: “If I can save this Nest, that might make up for the lives I took there. And now that I know you’re part of it—” He pulled her into his arms again. “No matter what else happens,” he said against her hair, “if you’re safe, then that’s something that’s right with the world.” For more Sneak Peeks, visit the Sneak Peek Sunday blog.
Urdaisunia is available at: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple | Kobo | OmniLit Smashwords | CreateSpace | DriveThruFiction
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Welcome to this weekend's Sneak Peek! Today we're going back to Chosen of Azara, as Princess Juzeva meets her new husband, the man she's being married to for political purposes, for the first time (Ilvana is her mother, the queen): “And here is Idan, Crown Prince of the Madrinan Empire,” Ilvana said. She gestured towards the young man standing between the Emperor and his advisor. “Your future husband.” Prince Idan was tall and well-built, with red hair, a strong-boned, handsome face, and clear green eyes. His clothes and armor were less elaborate and more practical-looking than his father’s. Though he was young and handsome, his expression was grim. This was the man she was to spend the rest of her life with, the man who would be the father of the children she had never planned to have. Fighting back a sudden urge to flee from the room, Juzeva curtsied to him. The Prince stepped forward and bowed to her, then spoke in formal, carefully-pronounced Savarunan. “My lady Juzeva, I know this duty is difficult for you, as it is for me. We are both forced to give up our own desires for the sake of peace between our lands. But I promise you that from now on I will look forward, not back, in the hope that we can be, if not happy, at least content with our destiny.” Juzeva hadn’t expected such a courtly speech. The Prince had clearly spent a great deal of time practicing it, and Juzeva found herself moved by the effort. If nothing else, she would be married to a gentleman. She bowed her head to him, grateful for his courtesy and thoughtfulness. “I thank you, Prince Idan. I too will do my best to make our union a successful one.” She watched the Prince take his place beside his father again. Her gaze slid past Sajur Golu’s face just as the priest was hiding a look of deep contempt. Another prickle of revulsion or fear, or both, crept up her spine. “Let us be done with this, then,” Queen Ilvana said. She and Ezdar moved to a table which stood beneath the great middle window, where a scribe waited with the marriage and peace treaties. The scribe began reading the documents out loud. Juzeva didn’t bother to pay close attention; it made no difference whether or not she knew what they said. The terms had all been worked out already. She had had no say in them, and her opinion and consent had not been asked. The essence of the agreements was that, in exchange for a marriage-link to the Savaru royal family, which would bring with it a significant voice on the Queen’s Council and a healthy portion of the profits from Savaru’s rich fishing, farming, handcraft, and mining enterprises, the Madrinan Empire promised to not run its armies over the land. A bloodless defeat for Savaru, a quick and cheap victory for the Empire. Chosen of Azara is available at:
Amazon | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Barnes & Noble | CreateSpace Apple | Smashwords | OmniLit For more Sneak Peeks, visit the Sneak Peek Sunday blog. #SPeekSunday on Twitter and Facebook. Welcome to another weekend sneak peek! In this scene from Sarya's Song, Adan is being punished for attacking Master Uldo over something that Uldo did to Sarya, and Sarya has come to offer moral support: Adan was kneeling in the center aisle before the altar, wearing only a pair of knee-length linen underdrawers, chanting the tropes of repentance in an undertone. Sarya looked at his lean, muscular back. His skin had a natural light bronze tone, and there was a dusting of freckles across the tops of his shoulders. She wondered what his back would feel like under her hands. Then, appalled, she scolded herself. The man was in Penance because of her; she was here to offer support, not to lust after him. She was only having those feelings because she was slightly – just very slightly – drunk and she had never seen his bare back before. Carefully turning her mind to more virtuous thoughts, she examined his back for signs that he had been lashed too hard. In the low light, she couldn’t see any sign of lashing at all. The Hierarch must have been smart enough to not put Master Uldo in charge of Adan’s Penance. That would have been a disaster. She tore her eyes away from Adan’s back. “Idiot,” she said. “You didn’t have to go and get yourself in trouble on my account.” He stopped chanting. “It’s no trouble.” “Why did you do it?” “If you don’t know, there’s no point in me trying to explain it to you.” Sarya's Song is available at:
Amazon | Amazon UK | Amazon CA Barnes & Noble | Apple Smashwords | OmniLit For more sneak peeks, visit the Sneak Peek Sunday blog. Welcome to this weekend's sneak peek! Last week, Sarya had a bad day at the office; this week, the physician, Master Baroda, has decided she's just suffering from overwork and needs to rest, and Adan uses all his manly wiles to try to convince Sarya to spend a few days in the infirmary: “You can’t go on like this. Just a day or two, all right?” “Don’t order me around, Muari.” In answer, he took her face in his hands and kissed her again. It was a good thing Sarya was already sitting down because her legs turned to water at the touch of his mouth on hers. The kiss was warm and insistent, and she felt her lips parting beneath his though she tried to will them not to, and she couldn’t decide if she was mad that he hadn’t asked first or glad that he hadn’t asked because if he had she would have said no – He pulled away, leaving her gasping for breath and stupidly wishing the kiss hadn’t ended. The physician was gazing off to the side, an amused expression on his face. Sarya reminded herself that Adan was an arrogant, overbearing ass and that she didn’t want him kissing her. “That might work on other women, but it won’t work on me, Muari.” He gave her a smug smile. “Good luck, Baroda.” “I will mostly likely need it,” Master Baroda said. For more sneak peeks, visit the Sneak Peek Sunday blog.
Welcome to another sneak peek into Sarya's Song. Here, Sarya hits a rough spot in her search for the mysterious music she's been hearing: Flames burst out of the book and engulfed her. She screamed in terror and in pain at the searing heat, and beat at her face, her hair, her arms, trying to put the fire out. But it blazed even more fiercely, burning, blistering, turning her hair and clothes and skin to ash – “Sarya!” Adan’s voice cut through her screaming and the roar of the flames. A pair of strong arms caught her up and carried her through the wall of fire and upstairs, where he set her down on a bench. He crouched in front of her. “What in the Hells of Torment happened in there?” Once she was free of the flames, Sarya’s screams had died away, but she was still shaking badly. She looked at her hands, her dress, her half-undone braid hanging over her shoulder, expecting to see them burned away. They were completely untouched, with no sign of burning at all. She glanced towards the stairwell; smoke should have been pouring up from the basement, but there was none. “There was a fire –” “No, there wasn’t,” Adan said. “There was. The book – fire came out of the book when I opened it – I could feel it burning me –” Her teeth started chattering in spite of the day’s heat. “There was no fire, Sarya. Everything’s all right.” Sarya's song is available at:
Amazon | Amazon UK | Amazon CA Smashwords | OmniLit For more Sneak Peeks, visit the Sneak Peek Sunday blog. For this weekend's sneak peek, a look into Sarya's Song. Here, Sarya first sees the chained man: She awoke with a start and found herself – somewhere else. She was still kneeling on a stone floor, but it wasn’t as cold as the floor of the Shrine. The air on her bare arms and feet also felt warmer. Looking around, she realized that she was in a small room about the size of a dormitory room – or a prison cell. The room was dimly lit, and shadows veiled the walls and corners. The cramps in her legs and the sting on her back where the lash had broken her skin seemed very distant. A sense of presence, of someone waiting and watching, brought her to full alertness. She didn’t feel afraid, though. Instead, a desire filled her to know who was there and what they wanted. Her mind and body strained in eager anticipation as she waited… “Sarya dyr-Rusac,” a deep, quiet voice said from a dark corner of the room. Sarya caught her breath at the sound of the voice. It resonated deep within her heart and soul, in places that she had shut away long ago, and stirred feelings that she had tried for years to pretend she didn’t have. She looked in the direction the voice had come from. The shadows in the corner lifted to reveal a man sitting on the floor. He had long black hair, a pale face that was achingly beautiful yet entirely masculine in its lines, and a lean, firmly muscled body. A complex pattern of curving black lines cascaded over his right shoulder and right breast, and Sarya felt a sudden wild urge to trace her fingers along those lines, to feel the skin of his chest beneath her fingertips. The light in his corner brightened a bit to reveal the color of his eyes, deep sapphire blue. He appeared to be tall, but his wrists and ankles were bound with short chains attached to an iron ring on the floor, which prevented him from standing up. He met Sarya’s eyes with a gaze that reached as deeply into her as his voice had. He looked at her as though he saw her standing naked before him, with all her thoughts and secrets and yearnings revealed, and desired her. Sarya's Song, coming April 10, 2014! For release news and information about the special low introductory price, sign up for my email alerts!
For more Sneak Peeks, visit the Sneak Peek Sunday blog. #SPeekSunday on Twitter and Facebook. Welcome to this week's weekend sneak peek! Here's another peek into Urdaisunia: After being sent on an errand by her village to the Royal Palace, Rashali was taken to a guest room and left to cool her heels for three days. Finally, she's summoned to meet with Prince Eruz, to find out why he's been keeping here there: “I’m sure you’ve been wondering why I’ve kept you here.” Rashali’s heart pounded; finally she would learn what her fate was to be. During the last two days, she had wanted only to find out, just to get it over with, but all at once she wished she could go on wondering a little longer. Delaying the knowledge wouldn’t change her fate, though; the only thing she could do was face it. “I assume that if you meant to imprison me or put me to death, I wouldn’t be in that room. Therefore it seems more likely that you mean to make me a slave or a concubine, though it would seem strange for a slave to be given such a room.” “A concubine, then. Is that what I should do with you?” Her face burned, and she found herself shaking; whether more from anger or fear, she couldn’t tell. “I’d rather die than be made a harlot.” “Would you really?” She didn’t want to die, but there was no other possible answer when being given such a choice. Her heart pounded harder, and she swallowed as she tried to gather her courage to say yes. Urdaisunia
$3.99 ebook/$10.99 trade paperback Available from: Amazon | AmazonUK | AmazonCA | Barnes & Noble | Apple Smashwords | CreateSpace | OmniLit For more Sneak Peeks, visit the Sneak Peek Sunday blog. #SPeekSunday on Facebook and Twitter. Time for another weekend sneak peek. Here, in Chosen of Azara, Lucie finally meets the man of her dreams, and finds out he isn't exactly what she expected: “Azara gave me her life, so that I would not die before my vow was fulfilled. I figure I’m close to four hundred years old.” He smiled again, a faint shadow of a grin that was quickly gone. “I’ve lost track of a few years here and there.” Everything he was saying was pure nonsense. It had to be. Her fantasies of what it would be like to meet him crumbled away, leaving a hollow disappointment behind. Either he was playing a stupid, cruel joke on her—and there was nothing in his manner to suggest this, only absolute sincerity—or he was only a madman, a wandering beggar lost in dreams and tales of long ago and, for some reason, obsessed with her pendant. If he was indeed mad, she realized, he might be dangerous if she refused to give him what he wanted. With a pang at giving up the gift her mother had given her, she unclasped the slender chain with the crystal vial from around her neck and held it out for him. “Here. If all you want is my pendant, you can have it. You don’t have to make up these stories to get me to give it to you. Just take it and leave.” He took her hand in his, laid the crystal pendant on her palm, and gently closed her fingers around it. He held her closed hand for a moment—why did she have to like the feel of him holding her hand so much?—then released it. “That won’t work,” he said. “The power in that token can only be used by a daughter of Juzeva’s blood. I need you to come back to Savaru with me and use that power to restore Savaru to life.” The outrageous request left her stunned—she wasn’t sure she could have possibly heard him correctly. “Excuse me?” she finally managed to say. “You want me to go away with you?” “Yes.” Chosen of Azara is available at
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple | Smashwords | CreateSpace | All Romance eBooks For more Sneak Peeks, visit the Sneak Peek Sunday blog. #SPeekSunday on Twitter and Facebook. For this weekend's sneak peek, here's the opening of Sarya's Song (still not the final version, but getting closer!): On a small rise on the gently rolling prairie, Sarya sat with her battered lute in her arms, picking out the new melody that she could hear in the wind. The breeze was sharp with coming winter, and the grass was dry and brown. With the cold weather coming on, it was time to head south again. She hadn't done as well in the northeastern prairies as she had hoped; the region's rich farming and herding had suffered from the last several years of increasingly long and harsh winters, and though it wasn't as poverty-stricken as the bleak and destitute Burnt Hills, where she had grown up, there was still little paying work for a traveling minstrel. She turned her mind away from the grim mining town of her childhood and the poor prospects ahead of her, back to the haunting music that teased at her mind. She had always been able to hear music no one else could hear, but it wasn't until she had come to the Skola at Sucevita when she was fourteen that she had learned that these melodies, called tropes, were part of the natural world, and, when sung as chants, they could be used to control the world and all things in it. The last several years, she had begun to hear music that couldn't be found in any of the collections of the known naturally-occurring tropes. Over time, she had come to realize that the new tropes she was hearing seemed to herald disasters like none ever before known: long, dry, scorching summers and harsh, bitterly cold winters unaffected by any of the the weather-control chants; great shakings of the earth; exchanges of bloodthirsty hostilities between nations that until then had always been peaceful. When none of the natural tropes succeeded in controlling these catastrophes, new chants had been Composed, to no avail. And then there was the last wedding ritual Sarya had Arranged. A chant intended to protect against tragedy had not only failed utterly, it seemed to have brought about the very calamity it was supposed to prevent. Sarya could only conclude that the chants were failing, or else there were new forces at work in the world that were beyond their influence. But both were impossible. The music that controlled the world, both naturally-occurring and Composed, was a gift from Eshalarian the Creator himself, which He had given to mankind before moving on to new worlds and new creations. As a gift from the God, this music was perfect and eternal and couldn't fail. And unless Eshalarian had returned His attention to this world, no new forces could come into existence. Surely, if the kind and generous Creator did return to His work here, He wouldn't do so by bringing death and destruction. A gust of icy wind rushed across the prairie, blowing strands of wheat-gold hair into Sarya's eyes. She lifted her hand to push the hair away from her face. As she did so, the wind rippled across the lute strings, bringing forth the melody she had been hearing in the wind in its fullness. Her breath caught at the beauty of the music even as it chilled her heart with fear. Sarya's Song, coming in April 2014. (Or maybe late March.) For release news and to make sure you don't miss out on the special low introductory price, sign up for my email alerts!
For more Sneak Peeks, check out the Sunday Sneak Peek blog! #SPeekSunday on Twitter and Facebook. Here's another sneak peek inside The Lost Book of Anggird: Perarre and Professor Rossony have had a serious disagreement over a book he found that he isn't supposed to have, and Perarre has to make a difficult decision about their relationship: PERARRE LAY AWAKE in the dark bedroom. Roric was sound asleep, his body warm and still against hers. She shifted away from him a bit; he didn’t move. Where his words hadn’t convinced her to open the book, his lovemaking almost had, though she was sure he hadn’t meant it that way. She was sure he had only meant to mend the rift between them, to comfort her after upsetting her so badly, to assure her of his love even though he couldn’t agree with her. But when she was with him she couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t think at all; she found it impossible to refuse him anything he wanted. He wasn’t going to listen to her. And maybe he was right. Maybe opening that book was the only way to find answers. She didn’t know. What she did know was that there was something terrible inside that book, whether it was whatever had frightened the Triumvirate so much or what it said about what really happened between them and the Benefactor, and that opening it would lead to disaster one way or another. If Roric wouldn’t listen to her, there was only one thing left for her to do. Carefully, hardly even daring to breathe, she slid out of bed and dressed as quickly as she could. She looked at Roric for just a moment. The memory of the night he had opened up to her, exposing all of his pain and shame to her, tugged at her heart. He had trusted her with the secrets he had hid from everyone else, trusted her not to turn away from him and his terrible past. She felt like she was betraying him in the worst possible way, but she was afraid that if she stayed, he would wear her down and persuade her to open the book against her better judgment and all her instincts. She didn’t dare kiss him, lest she wake him up or change her mind about what she had to do. Without looking back again, she opened the door and slipped out of the room, feeling as though she had ripped out her heart and left it behind in that bed. In her room in the Assistants’ Hall, she packed her clothes, her letters from Laydra and Samale, and as many books as would fit into the single valise she had brought to the University nine years ago. She should have known the affair with Professor Rossony was a mistake. She should have known it would end badly. What in the world had made her think that sleeping with her employer was a good idea? That was the problem; she hadn’t been thinking at all. She bit her lips to stop herself from crying as she jammed her belongings into the bag, but tears still ran down her face. Angrily, she pushed them away. When would she ever learn to stop and think things through before jumping into trouble? The Lost Book of Anggird is available at: Amazon | Apple | Diesel | Smashwords | CreateSpace | All Romance eBooks For more Sunday Sneak Peeks, check out the Sneak Peek Sunday blog.
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