You guys know I’m a fan of angel stories, right? Especially sexy angel guys? Possibly? So I was really excited to hear when my friend Michele Lang sold a book, that it was about a HOT ANGEL GUY. Seriously, it’s like she wrote this book just for me. The novel is called LADY LAZARUS and it features a witch who’s out to stop the baddies of World War II, and to do so, she has to find a book. And the book has a hot, sexy, winged guardian…I think you know where I’m going here.

So I asked Michele to guest blog and here she is!

Michele Lang on her new release, LADY LAZARUS:

One of my favorite characters in all of my books is the mighty but tortured Raziel, the author of the magical book that everybody wants in LADY LAZARUS. His motives may be murky as seen through Magda’s eyes, but Raziel never does
things halfway and despite all the dangers and his essential mystery, she knows he will never leave her.

Here’s a quick list of just a few of the reasons I love my man-angel so much. I SWEAR there will be no spoilers…

5 reasons why Raziel rocks my world

1. The dude is righteous. Unlike me, he doesn’t second guess his role in the world and knows his place in the universe. Until he meets that infuriating witch, Magda Lazarus, face to face, and oh wait…

2. Wingspan. There are angel wings, and then there are the blocky man-wings of Raziel. Except when he gives them up to…eerrrr…

3. He looks great in a suit. Raziel knows how to dress, though he doesn’t know how to button a shirt. Ahem…moving on…

(Jill’s note – I do not consider this a problem in the slightest.)

4. He kicks bad guy butt. Werewolves turn into gray goo on contact. Wizards back away when he arrives on the scene. Except he seems to know the most ancient demon of the Reich a little *too* well…uh oh…

5. He stands by Magda. Despite all of the above and much more, he never doubts the fact he is meant to watch over her. Except when he realizes their feelings for each other could doom them both…dun dun dun…

Hey, I promised no spoilers. *evil laughter*

Sounds awesome! Want to read for yourself? Comment here at Odd Shots (international welcome, but your copy will be shipped via Book Depository and thus not signed) on if you want to read about Raziel and Magda for yourself. Leave a comment before 11:59PM on Thursday September 9, 2010. I will randomly draw a winner next Friday. One entry per household.

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BRILL. I. ANT.

I remember singing “There’s a place in France, where the naked ladies dance” over and over again as a kid. No clue what it was referring to other than it was a catchy sing-song and it mentioned being nekkid. That was enough for any seven year old. To hear this applied in a song makes me think that Ke$ha is a total freaking genius.

But it also makes me wonder if everyone thinks the same way? I’m a big fan of common ground in reading (and in songs). What I don’t like? Remakes. Whether it be a movie or a song (remember when that chick redid the Bryan Adams song HEAVEN? I wanted to punch the radio every time I heard it), I’m not a fan. WHY would we remake The A-Team? Why would we remake ROMAN HOLIDAY (which is apparently in the works)? Dear God, why would anyone want to remake Dukes of Hazzard?

So. I hate remakes. But I like what Ke$ha did with her song. Is there a line? Or am I just nuts?

(Also – my daytime access to Odd Shots is now blocked, which makes me a sad panda. So if you comment, I *will* respond but it’ll be this evening)

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Jill, thanks for inviting me to guest blog! I’ve been on a bit of a whirlwind blog tour the past couple of weeks, and all my posts have been about the mythology, characters, themes and ideas behind Sins of the Heart (Aug/10), Sins of the Soul (Sept/10), and Sins
of the Flesh (Oct/10). So I thought I’d write something a bit different for this post and tell you five things about me.

1. My favorite wine is white zinfandel. Yeah, I know, it’s the wine for those who are definitely not wine connoisseurs. But I stick by my choice, and proud of it, lol! And truth to tell, I don’t drink much, maybe a glass of wine every couple of weeks. Only once in
my life have I ever ordered a full bottle of wine…split it with author Michelle Rowen the night before an all day writing workshop. But that’s a story for another day.

2. I’ve had brutal, crazy deadlines the past few years, and chocolate got me through. Yes. I admit it. I am a chocolate fanatic. (Along with Swedish Berries, sticky toffee pudding, and my new fave food: Naan bread.)

3. I take hip-hop classes on Wednesday nights. Am I any good? Not in the slightest, but, hey, it’s fun. Besides, I need to do something to burn off the calories from all that Naan bread!

4. My favorite game is Boggle, and I play to win. Followed at a close second by Scrabble.

5. I love my new series. I love Dagan and Roxy (Sins of the Heart). I love Alastor and Naphré (Sins of the Soul). I love Mal and Calliope (Sins of the Flesh). I love Kai and Amber (Sin’s Daughter). And I hope you love them too.

Leave a comment and tell me what your comfort food is. What scrummy snack makes your heart (and taste buds) sing? What do you like to snack on while you’re reading? I’m offering one commenter a signed copy of SINS OF THE HEART.

Jill’s notes: Comment by 11:59 PM PST on WEDNESDAY AUGUST 11, 2010 to be entered into the drawing. One winner will be randomly chosen, and the name posted on this blog Thursday August 12, 2010. Only one entry per household. Duplicate entries will be deleted. No purchase necessary to enter. Odds of winning depend upon number of entries received. Void where prohibited. Valid only for Canadian or US addresses.

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Anyone that spends time on internet book websites knows that steampunk has been on everyone’s lips for the past year. There’s still a lot of confusion as to what it is, though. Meljean provides a handy guide here, but as best as I can understand – it’s Victorian Science Fiction. Which is cool!

Except people are taking this stuff a few steps further. There’s Clockpunk, in which everything runs off of clockwork. Dieselpunk, which I would assume runs off of diesel. I’ve heard of squidpunk too, and to be honest, I have NO idea what that’s about. And then I just started thinking about all the different ways one could twist ‘steampunk’ into their own ‘punk’ and came up with the following.

SunkPunk – This steampunk story happens under the sea.

JunkPunk – Your airships run on garbage (actually, this would be a cool story)

HunkPunk – In which Fabio drives your airship…

ChunkPunk – Or Jack Black drives your airship…

CrunkPunk – This time, Snoop Dogg is your captain!

JunkInTheTrunkPunk – Or Kim Kardashian…

PunkPunk – In which everything is redundant. Every chapter is chapter one.

SkunkPunk – You’ll need a bath in tomato juice once you’re done reading, and your neighbors will avoid you.

So what ‘punk did I miss?

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Josh Harris (courtesy of TV Guide)

But the romance writer in me is fascinated by an entirely different reason: Josh and Jake Harris. You see, Captain Phil has two sons that crab fish with him on his boat. The older one, Josh, has rarely had much screen time. He’s quiet, never says much, and all I remembered about him was that he had a big pair of ears that stuck out very far from his head. As men go, he’s unfortunately a little bit goofy looking. And quiet.

The younger son, Jake, is the ‘cuter’ one. A bit of a rebel and a bad boy, he’s always teasing someone or looking to get out of work. It’s clear from his relationship with his dad that he was the baby of the family, and able to get away with everything.

Captain Phil went down with a stroke a few episodes ago, and a very interesting dynamic emerged. The younger son, Jake, broke down and cried (as anyone would). Josh just clenched his jaw and did what needed to be done. He made sure everything on the boat was taken care of. He was at his dad’s side at the hospital. He held his hand when he needed it, and took care of everything else that needed taking care of. Jake went to his hotel room and got wasted, unable to handle the stress of his father’s illness.

Jake Harris (courtesy of TV Guide)

As a romance writer, I find this fascinating. Jake is clearly the hot bad boy. The rake. The one that stars in just about every romance novel out there (mine included!).  Yet Josh was the strong, stable one, and despite the big floppy ears, I find that incredibly sexy.

So why aren’t there more stable, dependable guys in romance? Because watching them on the show made me think that the rake and bad boy is HIGHLY overrated.

Did anyone else watch? What do you think?

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The winner of a copy of DEMON BLOOD is:

Lizzielvr says:

July 9, 2010 at 11:20 am

Jill, you are too funny! I don’t want to be around when Meljean actually reads this post!

I think I would give my guardian a gift of massage…by me, of course…

Congrats! Lizzielvr, send me an email at jillmyles at gmail dot com and we’ll get the prize sent out to you.

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So today I thought we’d talk about publishing and Occam’s Razor.

Oc·cam’s razor — a philosophical or scientific principle according to which the best explanation of an event is the one that is the simplest, using the fewest assumptions or hypotheses (thank you, yourdictionary.com!)

Why do I bring this up? Because I think people make publishing harder than it should be, sometimes. This is not to say that it’s not HARD to get published, of course – but that some people make things needlessly complicated.

For example, yesterday a co-worker asked me to meet with them after work because she wanted to know more about publishing. Okay, I can do that. So we grab a nice park bench and we talk. The first thing she wants to know is, “How do you make sure that your agent isn’t stealing your work?”

I  could feel my face puckering into some sort of dismayed, befuddled expression, kind of like when I see those Real Housewives shows on TV. “A legitimate agent won’t steal your work,” I tried explaining to her.

She was clearly skeptical of me, and it took another 15 minutes or so for me to explain how the business works. See, there are two possible scenarios that could happen when you submit a really great manuscript to an agent.

SCENARIO 1: Agent reads, offers to represent it. Agent sells it to a publisher and collects 15% for their part in the deal. End of story.

SCENARIO 2: Agent reads, decides to steal the book. Agent gets the file and word-replaces everything that might incriminate them. Agent sells book to someone in NY. Agent avoids your angry phone calls. Agent lawyers up and heads to court to protect the property they stole from you, and spends months or years fighting in court against you. Agent possibly goes to prison or pays fines for stealing your work. Agent will never work with the publisher again if they get caught and their career is ruined.

Um. So which one seems the easiest to you?

Now this is not to say that there aren’t unscrupulous people out there. That’s what the AAR is for – vetting agents and making sure that they follow guidelines. That being said, most agents like to abide by the law, and won’t steal your work. There’s simply not enough benefit in it for them. They can just take you on and sell your work and collect money (yay!) or they can go AROUND you, collect the other 85%…and then deal with the endless hassle and legal issues. No one WANTS legal issues, at the end of the day.

It’s Occam’s Razor. The simplest answer is the most likely. If every agent stole your work, no one would use agents, period.

The same thing goes for a lot of publishing, really. Like word counts. Or genre.  Or plot. Or spelling.

What’s the easiest way to get a book published? Occam’s Razor again – the easiest way is to present a professional book in a genre people are actively seeking that fits the appropriate genre guidelines.

Can you still get published if you write a 200k long romance that involves a man and his monkey, and it’s littered with typos and space aliens come out in chapter fourteen? Sure you can, if it’s an amazing book. But is this the EASIEST path to get published? Hellz no, my friends. Hellz no.

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*rubs hands evilly*

I kid, I kid. Sorta. But Meljean has a new book out this week and I thought we should talk about her Guardians series! The new book is about Deacon and Rosalia. And look at this cover. So purty. We loves it, preciousss. And I’ve already read DEMON BLOOD twice this month (because I’m a fangirl) and instead of reading it 3x and seeming WEIRD, I thought I’d go back to my personal favorite in the series, DEMON BOUND. I’m not sure why I love this one so much. Alice is so buttoned up – I appreciate the prim and proper heroine. Jake is puppyish and outspoken – usually in a bad way – but there’s something I love about an idealistic soldier hero.

However, in reading DEMON BOUND for the umpteenth time, I have noticed something. Alice is a chronic masturbator.

What? Yes, it’s true. In Victorian times, women went to the doctor to ‘settle their nerves’. The doctor would diddle the woman until she came, and then send her home all happy and relaxed. Part of me suspects this is why women were so high strung back then – oops! time to visit the doctor!

Anyhow, if you read DEMON BOUND, you’ll notice every once in a while, Meljean carefully slips in a reference to Alice going upstairs to ‘settle her nerves’ for the day. SHE IS TOUCHING HERSELF, YOU GUYS. I find this awesome and hilarious all at once.

And I thought…what this woman needs is a vibrator. Someone to give her a Christmas gift that keeps on giving. Of course, if we are giving her a vibrator, we’d need to give Jake viagra. Man has got no stamina.

And then I thought…what would the other Guardians get for Christmas? Or the vampires? Colin and Savi are easy – I’m thinking hair products. But Drifter? Michael? Irena?

(Irena actually probably needs something to relax her, like an alarm clock that plays ocean sounds. The woman seems high strung.)

So to celebrate the release of DEMON BLOOD, I’m giving away a copy of Meljean’s latest release! Just comment on what gift you’d buy for a Guardian to be entered to win. This contest is open internationally, of course. Comment by 11:59PM July 15 to enter.

(lord, this has been an expensive month for me, has it not? don’t tell my wallet.)

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The winners of the Kasey Mackenzie giveaway from last week are the following commenters: 

Julie Swaney says:  June 30, 2010 at 10:03 am

If I had to name two snake tatoos it would be Pinky and Slither.

Rachel Hospice RN says:  July 2, 2010 at 11:20 pmUmm….let’s see what I’d name mind…how about This and That

Congrats, ladies! Email me at jillmyles at gmail dot com and we’ll get those prizes sent out to you. )

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Today’s post is about a good friend of mine, K. A. Stewart. Her first novel, A DEVIL IN THE DETAILS, released on Tuesday. Yay! Ms. Stewart wrote a story that’s a little out of my box – a modern day geek samurai who saves souls. She kind of had me at geek samurai. Anyhow – I thought we might interview Ms. Stewart and see the process behind the creation of the story. Read on! You’ll also have a chance to win a copy of A DEVIL IN THE DETAILS.

He's too sexy for his sword...

Tell the Odd Shotters what DEVIL IN THE DETAILS is about and why we should read it.

A DEVIL IN THE DETAILS is about a modern-day samurai who slays  demons for a living. Jesse doesn’t have magical powers, he’s not extra-strong or super-fast. He’s just a guy with some combat training. He’s got a wife, a daughter, a mortgage payment, just like anybody. He has a lot to lose, but he fights for the simple reason that it’s the right thing to do.

(Jill’s note – A wife and a mortgage payment? Okay, I’m sold.)

Can you tell us about your road to publication? How many novels are in your trunk? How many rejections did you rack up?

Devil is actually the sixth book I’ve written (if you count the tripe I wrote in middle/high school). It is the first book I attempted to get published. I think I knew it was charmed from the moment the idea was born. I only sent out 28 queries. Of those, a third were no-responses, a third were outright rejections, and a third asked for material. Like I said, charmed.

(Jill’s note – I did not have this problem. Heh. Great. Now I hate her.)

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS is about a guy that fights to save people’s
souls from bad demon bargains? How did you come up with the concept?

The idea of a man following the bushido was actually my husband’s. That
gave me a very strong character sketch, a man with strict honor, a very black and white view of right and wrong. I just had to figure out what to DO with him. And it seemed to me that the greatest good an honorable man could do would be to save those who had lost everything, whether they deserved it or not. And what’s more important to lose than your soul?

(Jill’s note – I have no idea what bushido is, but it sounds totally sexy.)

Rumor has it that you’re a GIRL (gasp). What made you decide to write a guy character? Do you think that it was harder or easier for you to write Jesse because of your gender?

I suck at being a girl. I’ve been a tomboy all my life, most of my friends are male. I understand guys more than understand my own gender. I still had to stop and ask my husband, from time to time, “Would a guy really say this?” but for the most part, I’m comfortable in Jesse’s head. It just comes easier.

Since we have a bar theme here at Odd Shots, what’s your favorite drink?

I fully admit to liking froo-froo drinks. My favorite is a toss up between a pina colada, or an amaretto sour.

(Jill’s note – And you say you suck at being a girl – those are totally chick drinks!)

 Fill in the blanks. If you like _______ and________, you’ll love A DEVIL IN THE DETAILS.

Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, or anything by Simon R. Green (I would also
suggest Rob Thurman’s Cal Leandros series)

We have a lot of writers as well as readers here at Odd Shots. Do you have any writing advice for them?

Write crap. I see so many people who never finish anything because they’re afraid it’s not good enough. Well, it probably isn’t. But it COULD be, if it was finished, and revised. Ninety percent of the time, as I work on a new book, I find myself saying “Oh my god, this is going to be SO good…when I finally get it right.” You can’t edit what you haven’t written, so write crap. Then make it pretty.

(Jill’s note – This is true. I write crap all the time — just look at my log of Odd Shots posts!)

The guy on the cover is pretty hot. How close is your cover ‘Jesse’ to the Jesse in your imagination? And while we’re on the topic of guys, who do you think would play Jesse in Hollywood?

I love playing this game, but don’t watch a whole lot of TV, so I’m really bad at it. The guy on the cover makes a good Jesse, but he might even be too handsome. Someone suggested to me that Josh Holloway of Lost  fame would be a good Jesse, and while I didn’t follow the show, some of his scruffier pictures would match perfectly.

(Jill’s note – Um, I TOTALLY approve of the Josh Holloway selection.)

I’ve never read Jim Butcher and I’m a hard sell on a male protagonist. Tell me why I should read DEVIL anyhow. Is there lots of romance? Girl cooties? Does Jesse walk around shirtless through the majority of the book? Spill.

To me, Jesse is the sexiest of the male species. He is a devoted, monogamous, loving husband and father. I find fidelity and loyalty to be an amazing turn on. Watching Jesse try to balance his very great love for his family with what he feels is his inescapable call to duty is both heart-warming, and heart-wrenching. (And, you also get to see his equally loving and unbelievably patient wife, Mira, knock some sense into him when he desperately needs it. Strong women are sexy too.)

(Jill’s note – That sounds good to me. I’m in!)

How about you? Interested? Comment below to be entered to win a copy of A DEVIL IN THE DETAILS. I’ll make it easy on you – just tell me your favorite girly mixed drink in the comments and you’ll be entered.

The small print stuff: These books will be shipping from Book Depository, so if they can ship to you, you can enter! International entries are welcome! Comment by 11:59 PM CST on July 14, 2010 to be entered into the drawing. One winner will be randomly chosen via random.org, and their name posted on this blog July 15, 2010. Duplicate entries will be deleted. No purchase necessary to enter. etc etc.

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