Stacy Gail is Nobody's Angel!!!

I mean she WROTE Nobody's Angel... Okay, so both things are true...

DO NOT buy that sweet innocent act.

Stacy is one of my REAL LIFE friends, though we met and bonded online for a long time before actually meeting face-to-face, but we've been friends since 2005, serious mind-meld friends, when she was solidly in the closet as a writer and I was still of the belief that 'author' was one of those things you only DREAMED of becoming. In fact Stacy was one of my earliest encouragers, and to this day remains one of my top three beta buddies (Leigh and Leanne, you rock, too)--I have lots more fabulous friends who help, but these three poor souls get almost EVERYTHING.

Now Stacy is ALSO a special case. (In more ways than one, eh, sister?) *cough* She made her initial publishing contacts and found her first opportunities on Twitter. Now I've been known to say you have to be on crack to follow Twitter. Erm... Maybe I should just leave it there...

Seriously, though, the other people who can Tweet are people with ADHD and Stacy seems to fit THAT profile... she is EVERYWHERE (and has usually take our shared brain with her, leaving me babbling)... she responded to calls for novella submissions, and has managed, in the last 18 books to publish FIVE (6?) novellas (wow, yeah?)... and land herself her first FOUR BOOK Contract for full-length fiction, beginning HERE...

So I will let Stacy tell you about THAT... Without Further Ado, WELCOME STACY!!!

Our friend Rissa's depiction of Stacy

Before we begin, I’d like to give huge thanks to Hart for allowing me to drop in to gab about my latest release and the start of The Earth Angels paranormal romance series, NOBODY’S ANGEL.  Thanks, Your Tartness!

Wow, has it been a wild ride getting NOBODY’S ANGEL out of my scrambled brain and into the world.  It might appear all pretty and shiny with the excellent marketing/artwork Carina Press always puts forth, but things have a way of looking easy-peasy when you see only the finished product. ;)

So, where did it all begin?  Oy.  To be honest, this series didn’t start with NOBODY’S ANGEL, really.  It was just this massive, messy idea about 21st-century descendants of the Nephilim, an ancient race of angel-human hybrids considered to be mistakes, even abominations, in the eyes of heaven.  After that plot bunny parked its fat rear front and center in my mind’s eye, I had no choice but to figure out what sort of personality could live under the pressure of knowing they’re a celestial boo-boo.  Once I had that established, I settled on about half-dozen or so characters I wanted to play with.

Zeke Reece, the hero of NOBODY’S ANGEL, kicks things off in a fast-paced, high-flying adventure that was, in part, inspired by my love of comic books (I read them to this day, though not as religiously as I used to as a kid ;) ).  Considering the material I was working with, that only makes sense.  When you’ve got super-powered people, you HAVE to have at least one of them take up the role of superhero, complete with mask, awesome powers, a secret fortress… and oh, yeah.  The creepiest super-villain I could dream up. O_o

So Zeke is the official superhero of The Earth Angels series, but he’s far from perfect.  Not only does he hate being a member of the Nephilim, he has trouble sharing the burden that comes with it.  When a phantasm called a geist targets Kendall Glynn, a journalist who’s just psychic enough to see its presence as well as Zeke’s supernatural abilities, he does his best to protect her.  But Kendall, who’s terrified of the bizarre element that has slipped into her life, is determined to help herself out of this fix.  She’s no quitter, and when she uses her own researching skills to uncover the true culprit, Zeke has to accept that there are times when he’s the one who needs help.

As of this writing, all four books in The Earth Angels series have been completed, with the first three fully edited and already in Carina Press’s publishing schedule for 2013 (I posted this schedule on my own blog here).  The fourth and final book is now being revised and will be shipped off to my editor this week (I hope), and after completing the series, I have to say it’s been a wild ride.  There will never be another “first” series for me, so The Earth Angels—and Zeke and Kendall, who start the ball rolling—are near and dear to my heart.

Hummina hummina...

EXCERPT:

“I can’t believe it…”

“There was so much blood.”

“What happened?”

Fragments of conversation hit Kendall Glynn from all sides, but the words were no more than an irrelevant buzzing in her brain. She was just as oblivious to the emergency vehicles scattered outside San Francisco’s top-rated KPOW TV station. Some of her colleagues were crying, while others spoke to police. The sea of people behind the yellow crime-scene tape all looked the same—eager spectators hoping for a glimpse of more blood, more madness.

She’d had enough of both to last a lifetime.

“Miss? Have you been treated?”

Kendall’s zombielike shuffling halted at the deep melodic voice close to her, and she turned to discover an EMT had appeared at her side. For a long moment she stared at him while his words slipped across the frozen surface of her mind without leaving a mark.

“I’m not hurt.” Her voice came from far off, unrecognizable and rough around the edges. Which made sense. The last time she’d used it had been to scream.
And scream.

And scream.

“You might not be hurt, but you are in shock.” Somehow she was moving again, heading for the back of an empty ambulance. It wasn’t until he helped her into it that she realized he’d pulled her along like a lost two-year-old. “I’m going to check you out, okay?”

“This blood, it’s not mine.” Amazing, how calm she sounded.

“I understand.” After settling her on the side of a gurney, the paramedic lifted her chin with a gloved hand and flashed a penlight across her eyes. “You’ve got lovely eyes, just like emeralds. Do you have a name?”

“Kendall Glynn.”

“My name is Zeke Reece. I’m going to take your vitals now, okay, Kendall?”

“I’m not hurt.” He had to understand she wasn’t the one who needed his attention. “The others, Dave Beamer and Jane Walters, they’re the ones who...” Oh, God.

“They’re being taken care of.” A blood-pressure cuff slipped over her arm. Began to squeeze. “You were close to them when it went down, right? Can you tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know.” Confused, she shook her head. “One second Dave was doing his job—smiling into the camera and reading the copy I wrote about a couple of murder-suicides. It was my first lead story.”

“Congratulations.”

“Maybe he didn’t like how I wrote it.” She couldn’t seem to stop shaking her head.

“The next thing I knew, Dave was choking our anchorwoman so hard I thought he’d snapped her neck, before he took his pen and…”

“Easy.” Zeke moved to sit beside her and pushed her head between her knees. “You’re not allowed to go that white, Kendall. Makes me think you’re going to faint.”

“I don’t know what happened,” she said again, closing her eyes and willing the queasiness to pass. “Everyone was screaming. It wasn’t until I got close to Dave that I realized he was yelling the loudest. It’s like he was possessed, jamming his pen into his own neck while he screamed for someone to stop him. I jumped on top of him, but…” She gulped in air until the ringing in her ears went away. “I think he’s dead. I think Dave is dead.” She trembled on the verge of admitting she’d seen the essence of Dave’s life drain away, just as she’d witnessed her grandfather’s life essence drift from his body in the hospital when she was a child. She’d told her mother about it, and had been reprimanded for letting her imagination run away with her like crazy Aunt Maggie, a woman who read palms and talked to spirits for a living. But deep down Kendall had always suspected what she’d seen that day was real, and Aunt Maggie probably wasn’t as crazy as her family claimed.

After tonight, though, she couldn’t help but think she might not be standing as securely on the stable ground of sanity as she’d once believed.


BLURB:
Book one in The Earth Angels

Investigative journalist Kendall Glynn is horrified when a friend and colleague signs off permanently during a live newscast, jabbing a pen into his jugular. Kendall's no expert, but judging by the strange white veil in the anchorman's eyes, she would swear he was a man possessed.

A descendant of the accursed Nephilim, Zeke Reece prowls San Francisco by night, keeping the city free from paranormal phenomena. But even he is no match for whatever malevolent force is behind a recent rash of murder-suicides. And when a beautiful tenacious reporter becomes the next target, Zeke has no choice but to stay close to her, until he can find the evil spirit and cross it over.

The closer Kendall gets to the truth, the more danger she's in. Fortunately, a sexy and mysterious masked stranger keeps swooping in to the rescue. Kendall's life depends on finding who or what is responsible for the killings, before it finds her.
33,000 words

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Question: With a multitude of paranormal-based movies, graphic novels and books on the market today, what do you think the next “big thing” will be? (Please no mention of sparkly vampires, thanks. The Tart has an allergy. :D)  Leave a comment and you’ll be entered in my giveaway of a $25 Amazon GC!




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