Book of the Week: Vampire Slayer

Jazz is one of my favorite characters that I’ve created. In his words:

You see, my real job is vampire slayer. Yeah, yeah it’s also not normal for satyrs to hunt vamps. We’re easily distracted by beer, boobs and bands, but beneath our three in the afternoon hang-overs, we’re good guys who can be pushed to our limit like everyone else.

Jazz is actually one of the first characters I created way back when I was taking writing classes. In the first story, the surprise reveal at the end was Jazz being a satyr. My teacher told me that audiences did not like “gotcha endings.” So then I tried to write it from the perspective of the love interest. The hope was audiences would be surprised in a good way along with Kyra when Jazz revealed himself as a Satyr. But I didn’t like that version. Several years later, I was invited to enter a story in an anthology (an “achievement unlocked” moment for me) and I decided to make one more attempt with Jazz. I did it in first person POV with him being straight-up with the audience about being a satyr. I love this version.

Vampire Slayer is a humorous, adventurous, and romantic way to start your week! Download today from Amazon for only $.99!

Fantasy Art 2

I’ve been super focused on The Beautician and the Billionaire finale and remiss posting about the Through the Magic series. Sorry about that!

As mentioned in my first post about Fantasy Art, Kevin Yancey is doing the covers for the trilogy. I wanted something a little different than normal urban fantasy book covers because the stories are a little different than normal urban fantasy stories.

I love working with Kevin because he really listens and implements changes that I ask for. Below is a couple from an unpublished story. He got all the details right from the armor to the hair to the perfect expressions.

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If you’ve bought The Beautician and the Billionaire Episode 7: The Mansion, be sure to check out the pages after the story. There’s a glimpse of the cover for the first in the Through the Magic series, Through the Painting.

 

Fantasy Art

I’ve mentioned that in May I’m switching genres a smidgen and publishing an Urban Fantasy Romance. Of course, my urban fantasy will be a little different because that’s the grown-ass way.

The difference starts with my cover. Urban fantasy books usually have photos:

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Fantasy covers are often drawn:

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The covers for the Through the Magic trilogy are all going to be drawn.

I love working with artists either photographers or painters or whatever. Masked Hearts and Thankful Hearts by Hang Le are my two favorite covers. But I always feel like fantasy stories require an intangible element that photos miss. Plus photos have the danger that another author has used them for a cover too. For the Through the Magic trilogy, I wanted covers unique to the characters and stories.

I immediately thought of Kevin Yancy who’s done some custom pictures for my Valentines I think three years now! He’s been working hard for a couple of months on the first cover Through the Painting. I thought I’d do a little exhibit of his previous works for me leading up to the cover reveal.

As you can see, he knows how to draw abs!

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You can view more of his work at deviantart.com. And next weekend I’ll post another picture he did for me.