It’s only now I’ve recalled a pithy little line I included in the special features for The Royal Talisman:

“I have also been accused of an inability to write anything short to save my life.”

Good thing a hanging didn’t depend on the turn of that phrase.  Because I blithely included in the description for the Beloved Bloody Time series this disaster of a sentence:

“The books are short.”

Was it me that really said that?

What was I thinking?   I must have been on catnip at the time.

Anyway, here’s the very good news:  I’m closing in on the finish line for Byzantine Heartbreak, the second book of the series.  I can see the checkered flag from here, and if I can finish up my blog posts for the week fast enough, I might even finish the first draft this weekend.

That’s somewhat iffy, though, as Mark is wrestling here in Edmonton this weekend, so I’m going to be spending the day at the arena, and even though I spend the day with my laptop on my knees, I don’t usually get a lot of writing done.  I do get a lot of talking done, though!

But, back to my sad tale of my inadequacies as an author.

Byzantine Heartbreak was supposed to be short.  A fast, snappy read to match Bannockburn Binding, full of hot love scenes, action, tension and suspense.

Well, it’s got all that and more.  It’s just got a lot more of it than I’d anticipated.  Like…nearly twice as much.

Oops.

But, more good news.  One of the glories of self publishing is that I can take these sorts of snafus in stride.  I wrote a book twice as long as it was planned to be?  No problems.  We’ll just publish a book twice as long!  (‘We’, you understand, being ‘me, myself & I’.)

I imagine the length will shorten down a bit once I edit and tidy up the prose.  But at the moment it’s a plus-sized novel and I’m estimating it will be around the 400 page mark by the time I’m done.   That’s a hefty tome by anyone’s standard.  I think, even with hard pruning, it’s still going to be a long novel.

I’m not going to cut it in half or anything drastic like that just to maintain a series uniformity or, heaven forbid, a market price.  The story needs to take up whatever room it needs to be told well.  I have that freedom now.  So you get a fully developed story and characters, and you don’t get short-changed.

Here’s a snippet.  Warning: frank language ahead!

An Excerpt From: BYZANTINE HEARTBREAK
Copyright © TRACY COOPER-POSEY, 2012
All Rights Reserved

“Why’d’you say that?” Ryan asked.  “He’s a good man.”

“’cause he’s a vamp hater,” Cáel replied.  He shook his head.  “A great man, ‘cept for he’s flawed.”

Ryan was staring at him.  “That’s…he comes off like he’s Henry Kissinger.  How could you know that?”

Cáel shrugged.  “We were lovers for nearly a year.  Then I found out.”  He shuddered and drank.  He reached for the bottle to refill, and realized that Ryan was still staring at him.

“Lovers?  You?” Ryan said.

“Think you’ve got a corner on the market, Irishman?”  Cáel topped up Ryan’s glass.  “Not everyone goes for poetic lilts, you know.”

Ryan half-laughed.  He picked up his drink.  “So…what is this, then?  Are we on a date?”

Cáel’s stomach seemed to drop out from his body with a sickening, electrifying rush.  It had nothing to do with the whiskey.  He let his hand drop away from the glass and looked at Ryan, wishing his heart would quieten.  “Do you want it to be?”

Ryan was sitting motionless in the chair, the forgotten whiskey glass held in mid-air.  His eyes were narrowed, all emotion shielded.  After a moment, he gave a tiny shrug, and his mouth lifted in a little smile.  “You’ve gotta know, Stelios, I haven’t had a lover for centuries.  Not since—“

“Bullshit,” Cáel replied.

Ryan’s eyes widened, losing their guarded expression.  The surprise was quite clear.  He put his glass back on the bar.

Cáel didn’t give him time to pull his defense shield back together.  “You’ve had plenty of liaisons and partners, and a ton of sex, and that’s just in the 23rd century that Lyle Bean could find out about.  Do you want me to actually name names?”

Ryan opened his mouth to speak.

Cáel jumped in again.  “It doesn’t matter, anyway.  Because you’re hiding behind a distinction.  You don’t mind hot sweaty sex with whoever appeals to you whenever you feel like it, but what you really mean when you say you haven’t had a lover in centuries is that you haven’t fallen in love.  You haven’t had a relationship that lasted longer than a week.  You haven’t had the guts to try, and that’s pretty sad, isn’t it?”

Ryan was breathing hard, his eyes narrowed with anger.  But that was natural reaction.  Cáel had just kicked him in the guts.  Now he had to get him past the moment.

Cáel knocked back his drink and put the glass on the bar with a rap.  “Let’s get rid of the tap-dancing, because we both know how to do it too well, and we could talk me into a too-early grave with diplomatic waltzing.”  He took a breath, to steady himself.  “Do I want to fuck you, Ryan?  Yes.”

____________

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Quick update. My contemporary romance, Lucifer’s Lover, just hit print.  It looks gorgeous!  Especially with that cover.  And it’s a long novel, so it’s a pretty hefty tome, too.  You can pick up a copy directly from Createspace right now, or wait a few days for the print page to populate over at Amazon.

And The Royal Talisman, my erotic historical romantic suspense, has popped up at Barnes & Noble.com for all you Nook readers.  Although, as usual, no sign of a blurb, excerpt or author information, despite faithfully filing all that guff when I uploaded…  So I’m directing you to the book’s page here, first, then you can click through to B&N…

 _________________

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Constantinople from the Sea of Marmara, with the dome of the world famous Hagia Sophia in the background. It was the largest single domed structure built in the western world at the time. It would be rebuilt twice because of riots and fire.

It’s been a weird week. For a start, it’s been very cold. Like, 35 degrees Celsius below zero cold. That’s negative 31 in Farenheit for all you Imperial-thinking people.

I got Mukluks for Christmas — real authentic ones.  But even at -35, they let the cold in and my feet started to chill up.  I joke at work that I look like an old fashioned babushka:  mukluks, a full length coat, a shawl wrapped around my head, my fur (faux-fur) collar turned up around my ears, and layers and layers of clothes beneath, as I hurry along with my head down.

Only in Canada.

I catch the bus to and from work, so standing around waiting for that bus in the morning is the most miserable thing in the world.  And for some reason, the street where I wait for my bus is always a wind tunnel, even though it’s a perfectly normal suburban neighbourhood street.  Even the slightest breeze at those temperatures is a serious thing.

The location where I catch the bus to come home is just as bad and for some reason, the bus has been late every day this week…except for the two days when I was delayed a few minutes, and then it came early and I missed it, and was forced to wait a horrible 25 minutes on that freezing street for the next (and only) bus to come along.

So it’s been an interesting week.  It takes five minutes sitting on the bus just to get your fingers to unthaw enough to be able to type, let alone get your brain cranked up enough to start writing coherent thoughts.  The cup of double-brewed hot Irish Breakfast tea I take with me in a thermos cup that I get to sip as soon as I sit down is so welcome!

It must be weather-related, too, but the bus has been strangely over-crowded this week.  Every seat full and standing room only, which makes writing a challenge.

Nevertheless, I got all my blog posts caught up, and I started in on Byzantine Heartbreak, the second in the Beloved Blood Time series.  That was my goal for this week, and I’m pleased to say I pulled it off despite the weird challenges.

Here’s a snippet from this week’s scribbles:

An Excerpt From: BYZANTINE HEARTBREAK
Copyright © TRACY COOPER-POSEY, 2012
All Rights Reserved

“What is it?” Ryan nudged gently.

Nayara blinked, her gaze refocusing on him.  “I…it’s…nothing, Ryan.”

“What thought just occurred to you?”

She gave another tiny shrug.  “Nothing.”

Ryan sat his full weight on the window ledge and crossed his arms.  “You’re not really going to try lying to me, are you?”

He watched her hesitate and realized she was weighing up doing exactly that:  lying to him.  Stunned, he wondered what it was she was considering hiding from him.

“Give it up, Nayara.  Now I know you’ve remembered, I’ll dig it out of you with whatever tools I can think to use, if I have to,” he said softly.  “Especially if I think the station is in danger, and you’ve already suggested it might be.”

“No,” she said quickly.  “It’s not.  Not at all.  It’s just the opposite.  I’ve remembered, and it’s stupid.  It’s actually embarrassing.  It’s personal.”  She bit her lip, glanced at him, then her glance skittered away and he saw she really was feeling awkward.

“Since when could you not tell me anything?” he asked.

Her gaze swung back to meet his eyes squarely and she just looked at him.  No coyness.  There was challenge there.

Suddenly, Ryan realized what she would not share.

His gut tightened.  “You like someone,” he said, fighting to keep his expression neutral.

“No, I don’t know if I like them.  I barely know them outside of business,” she said, and Ryan could see that she was picking her words with care.  “Sometimes I find them most irritating.”  She frowned.

“Do you at least want to give me the gender so you don’t have to keep circling around the pronoun?” Ryan asked.

Nayara’s smile was wise.  “So you can build fantasies around me?  Hoping it is a woman, Ryan?”

Hating it’s anyone at all, he thought.  He made himself smile.  “Why not?”

__________________

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My erotic historical romantic suspense, The Royal Talisman, has just been uploaded to the Apple Store and on to Kobo today. Barnes & Noble and Sony are still holding out, but I’ll report when they’ve stocked it.

Have a great weekend!

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My MMF futuristic paranormal time travel romance, Bannockburn Binding, has just popped up on the Barnes and Noble site this morning.  Alas, without a blurb, story descriptor, category or anything to tell you what it is other than it’s mine.

I thought that, if it had popped up finally on Barnes and Noble, it might have generated on the other retail sites, so I wandered over to Sony and Apple to take a look and yes, it was there, too.  And lo and behold, it’s even at Kobo, which is usually weeks behind at getting books up.

So I’m linking you to the book’s page on my site, first, so you can read the blurb and excerpt there, before linking over to Barnes and Noble, or before choosing your preferred non-Amazon retailer.

Happy Saturday!

Cheers,

Tracy.

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Stop #4 of the Bannockburn Binding book tour.   Today I’m at Vampire Romance Books where I’m spilling my guts about what terrible pilots vampires make, in “Vampires…Natural Space Travellers?”

Swing by for an excerpt that hasn’t been seen anywhere else, and drop a line saying hello. I’m giving away a copy of Blood Knot today, too!

____________

Also, Bannockburn Binding is out in print on Amazon, now, too!

Bannockburn Binding - Tracy

Blood Knot by Tracy Cooper-Posey

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Stop #3 of the Bannockburn Binding book tour.  Romancing the Darkside are hosting me today.

Swing by for an excerpt that hasn’t been seen anywhere else, and drop a line saying hello. I’m giving away a copy of Blood Knot today, too!

____________

Also, a brief housekeeping note, because I’m so squeezed for posts over the next few weeks, this is the only place I can get it in.  Recently, I did a big Spring clean up of the categorized links in the sidebar, updating them according to the criteria — they were getting a bit out of date.  There’s quite a few new entries, too.

Have a browse.

Bannockburn Binding - Tracy

Blood Knot by Tracy Cooper-Posey

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Forgive me for the size of the cover, which is taking over the post here.  I really wanted you to get a good chance of checking out the hero’s eyes.  They’re something else, aren’t they?

If you’re reading this post on a handheld, or via email, or through a media that has crunched the cover image down to matchbox size, I encourage you to follow the link back to the original post on my site and have a good look at the details of this cover when it’s blown up to full size.  It’s absolutely stunning how much Dar Albert, the designer, gets into it.

I told her my hero’s eyes were catch-your-breath blue.  Boy, did she deliver!

And also check out the embroidering detail on the heroine, Bian’s, sleeves.  Dar creates all this herself.

Anyway, in case the subject line didn’t tip you off, I spent all day yesterday chained to my desk, plus I think I ended up nailing Dar to her desk for most of her Saturday, too, finalizing the cover, while I got The Royal Talisman formatted and released.

Ta-dah!  It is now officially available.

You can get The Royal Talisman in Kindle, ePub, RTF, LRF (Sony), PDB (Palm, from Smashwords), Plain Text,  PDF, Palm DOC/iSolo (From All Romance Ebooks), Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket (.prc), Rocket.

And with a small bonus.

The Royal Talisman used to be Masquerade’s Mate.  I have spent the last few weeks editing and adding scenes and wordage (there’s a much longer explanation about this inside the book).  I added so much, in fact, that The Royal Talisman is no longer a novella.  It’s it’s a short book that can be printed in its own volume.

So as this is my “Author’s Edition” I could add all the special features into the stand alone print edition.

Life is good.

I’ll add the blurb and an excerpt below that isn’t from the book’s page.

Enjoy.

_____________

It is 1884 and France is at war with China.  Stuart Sutherland-Bruce returns to England after a posting in China as a member of the English diplomatic corps.  He meets the astonishingly beautiful Bian, an exotic woman who turns his life upside down with the power of his desire for her.  As she continues to astonish him at every turn with the unexpectedness of her life and her responses to him, he falls deeply in love with her.

But Bian did not wander into Stuart’s life accidentally.  She has orders to become intimate with him and prove he has been giving English secrets to the Chinese.  Yet as she works her spell on Stuart, she learns he does not seem to be the traitor her British superiors assure her he is.

Bian is caught in a trap:  If she reveals to Stuart her real — and shocking — identity, she will lose the man she loves.  If she honours Stuart’s highest values and does her duty, then Stuart will be tried for espionage and hanged.

__

An Excerpt From: THE ROYAL TALISMAN
Copyright © TRACY COOPER-POSEY, 2012
All Rights Reserved

Patrick’s butler returned with a morning gown and other essentials, which allowed Bian to appear in public once more. Dressed in a dark purple velvet suit, which offered some protection against the damp wind gusting along the streets, Bian climbed into her carriage and snuggled under the lap robe. She gave directions for Madame Evamy’s on Bond Street, with a sigh. It was the only establishment she knew. Madam Evamy would have to provide the props she needed to verify her sudden urge to replenish her wardrobe.

Bond Street was as busy as usual. The damp air rising from the Thames and whistling down the street had not discouraged business in the slightest.

Bian’s driver dropped the steps for her and handed her out, along with a caution in his rough accent, “Wotch it, Miss Bian. I couldn’t get no closer and the gutters are a right mess.”

She took a long step on to the footpath and looked up.

Stuart was there.

Bian smothered her gasp of shock with her gloved hand, staring up at him. He towered over her, large in his dark overcoat. His hair was ruffled and his chin unshaved. He looked like he had gone for a month without sleep.

“Dear lord! Stuart! Where did you come from? You startled me.”

His hands were pushed deep into his pockets. “Who are you?” he asked. His voice was as rough as his chin. “Why can I not stop thinking of you?”

She looked around for observers. Her driver stood with the carriage door open, watching with a wary eye. “It’s all right,” she assured him, for he looked like he wanted to leap to her defence. It wouldn’t be the first time he had wielded his blackjack for her and she knew the damage he could inflict. “I know this man.”

“Ye sure, miss? ’e don’t look all that good t’me.”

“I’m sure. But wait a moment.” She turned back to Stuart. “Where have you been, to look as you do?” Genuine concern pushed the question from her. He looked like he had been to hell and back.

“Following you,” he rasped. “I needed to know…needed to…” He stepped closer to her and cupped her cheek with a hand that trembled. “God, who are you? I’ve not slept since that night—”

It was more than she wanted her driver to hear. She glanced over her shoulder but the driver was staring at the passing traffic, apparently stone deaf.

“Come,” she told Stuart, tugging at his sleeve. “Come with me.” She climbed back into her carriage and gestured for him to board, too. She knew there was a risk she would be seen in a carriage alone with a man but didn’t care. The raw emotion pouring from him was making her own heart sing with joy and her insides roil with need. It didn’t matter that this man had betrayed his country. That she was here in London to find proof of his deeds that would survive cross examination in court became a distant fact she could barely bother acknowledging, when before it had driven her every action.

She could only feel the pleasure of being with him, even as dishevelled as he was. His ragged, exhausted, driven state sent a shiver of excitement through her. She had brought him to this.

She settled back into her corner of the bench and spoke quietly to her driver, who stood patiently at the door. “The townhouse.”

“No,” Stuart said sharply, as he sat beside her. He gave the driver an address that she recognized.

“Your house?” she said. “My reputation would not withstand the impact if I were seen entering it without a chaperone.”

“I suspect your reputation has survived far more than a peccadillo of this magnitude,” Stuart said, with a piercing glance at her.

She bit her lip, then nodded to her driver, who tugged at his hat brim and shut the door.

________

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Stop #1 of the Bannockburn Binding book tour starts today with Fiction Vixen.

Swing by for an excerpt that hasn’t been seen anywhere else, and drop a line saying hello.  I’m giving away a copy of Blood Knot today, too!

See you there!

Tracy

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Mark was the one that pointed the nomination out to me, which is staggering, under the circumstances.  He noticed one of his contacts on Facebook talk about missing out on a CAPA nomination this year.  He remembered that the CAPAs are a big deal in the romance world, and flipped over to The Romance Studio’s website to check the nominations, and then almost broke his neck hurrying downstairs to tell me that Blood Knot had been nominated for Best Paranormal Romance, for 2011.

Sometimes I really do think he’s worth keeping…  :)

I actually missed all the announcements for this, which is the staggering part.  The nominations were announced on December 15th.  The winners in each category will be announced on February 14th — Valentine’s Day — next year.

The Romance Studio have done away with the separate “erotic” categories this year.  Erotic and “normal” paranormals are all in together (all other categories have also been blended, too).  I think this is significant:  Erotic romance has become mainstream and normalized.

I don’t for a moment expect to win.  Shiloh Walker is one of the nominees, just to start.  The rest of the nominees are a who’s who of paranormal romance authors in both legacy and epublished romance.  Interestingly, I’m one of only two indie authors who made the list of nominees.  I’m tickled pink about that, and in this case, being nominated really is honour enough.

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