I’m caught in the darklight at Darksiders Downunder today. Darklight On… is a regular column that I host on this website but the brilliant and imaginative Eleni Konstantine is hosting my Q&A… since it’s a bit hard to host oneself!
If you’d like to know what drew me to the spec fic genre or what themes are important to me, pop on over to Darklight On.
If you’re keen to score a free copy of The Blood She Betrayed paperback (personally signed by moi), drop into two of my most recent blogs, my Release Day post at the Australian Romance Readers of Australia (ARRA) website, and the DarkSiders DownUnder Magic Thursday Giveaway.
While creeping through DarkSiders, check out some of my
friends’ awesome tributes to The Blood She Betrayed: T-shirts, Barbie dolls, fan fiction and art… what will they come up with next? (and thanks, Rieckie Muchow, for the use of all your Barbie The Blood She Betrayed photos!)
To be in with a chance of winning a personally-signed paperback, all you have to do is leave a comment at one of the above websites – or leave a comment at both websites for chances to win. These blogs are both part of my Hearts & Talons Tour & Giveaway.
My Hearts & Talons tour kicks off tonight (or this morning, depending on where you are in the world) with a fabulous, five-star review by Keren Hughes at Gothic Angel Book Reviews. Read the full review here.
Confession time: Keren and I are good friends, not that this review is in any way biased… she wrote this review after reading The Blood She Betrayed two years ago, only hours after we randomly met on Twitter. I was an aspiring, uncontracted author; she had started her own review website. We connected in our first conversation because Max first sees Shahkara as a Goth Angel, which shadows the name of Keren’s website.
Keren had soon read my book blurb and begged me to send her a copy of The Blood She Betrayed. I threw caution to the wind and did. Fortunately, she fell in love with my story and characters, so much so that she posted me my first-ever fan mail – by genuine snail mail from the United Kingdom to Australia! Unreal! I still keep her card, pictured above left with some of my The Blood She Betrayed swag, on my author’s desk (left).
Every writer encounters tough times before they become a published author. For me, I remember hunting for an agent last year and receiving a letter back from one who graciously spent the time in writing back to me (not to be sneezed at), but she said she could not represent me because ‘too much happened in my book’ and ‘my 
hero came across as sleazy’. Sleazy? My Max? But I’ve always valued genuine editorial advice and I was soon on the internet to Keren (not because she wasn’t my only friend who had read the book, but I knew she was the only friend who could be impartial) and I asked her if I needed major rewrites on Max and the rest of my plotline. No, she insisted, she’d loved Max just the way he was (to pirate Darcy’s words from Bridget Jones’ Diary). I did edit and polish my manuscript a lot more, but kept my characters and plot, the heart of my story, the same.
Keren’s reassurances were gold because I soon found other professionals who believed in my manuscript, including The Vampire Diaries’ New York Times bestselling author LJ Smith and Clan Destine Press Publisher Lindy Cameron.
To kick off my Hearts & Talons Tour, pop over to Keren’s Gothic Angel Book Reviews website and have a read. I am visiting a number of different blogs during my Hearts & Talons Tour and will try to check in each day and let you know where I’m at.
Don’t forget my FaceBook eBook launch party is tonight. Log on here for an invite. I’m sure there will be more news later in the day. Until then, Happy Reading, Happy Living. Cher x
PS: Keren has since written her own novel, Stolen, and just gained a contract with Limitless Publishing. Congratulations, Keren! You can find out more about Stolen here.