Are you ready to go "In the Black"?

I'm pleased to announce that on May 12^th Carina Press will be releasing "In the Black", the first book in my new series, "Tales from the Edge". It's a rip-roaring adventure series with I like to explain as "Firefly" meets "Best Little Whorehouse"… but why not read an excerpt and you can judge for yourself?

***

This was the worst part of the job, the toughest thing for any captain who ran a Mercy Ship. When she’d taken over the Bonnie Belle six months ago, it’d seemed amusing— starting off the landfall with a bang, as it were. Then back to signing off on maintenance reports and reading mystery novels until the Belle was ready to head out for the next stop on their cycle.

Now this ceremony was like a hangnail catching on anything and everything without relief in sight.

Performed once a month.

For another four and a half years.

Samantha Keller stood in front of the double doors, waiting for her cue. A low beep in her ear from the transmitter signaled her to proceed. She pasted a huge smile on her face and pushed her way through the swinging double doors, making a note to swing her hips and slow the hell down.

She couldn’t run down the aisle, no matter how much she wanted to get this over with.

The black leather straps cut into the back of her heels as she strode down the center aisle. She made a mental note to toss the shoes into the garbage bin as soon as she got back to the Belle.

She’d have worn her old jump boots but Jenny insisted on her buying the stilettos on their first stop at Land’s End base, saying they matched the brand-new leather jumpsuit and that it’d be unseemly for her to make the announcements in “ragged, old, stinky” military boots.

Sam had lived and almost died in those boots and if they were good enough for that, they’d be good enough for this. The words had been on her tongue when she’d spotted the eagerness in the mechanic’s eyes.

In the end she’d bought the bloody shoes, the ones now gouging raw spots on her heels. Six months and they were nowhere near broken in.

Mind you, she only wore them for a few minutes once a month. Maybe she should have Jenny stomp around and soften them up.

The damned jumpsuit still rode up, tempting her to make some very unladylike gestures.

Sam missed her old soft, olive drab uniform.

Along with the weapons that went with it.

There was something about having a pistol at her side that made certain situations more bearable.

Like this one.

She spotted Huckness, the security chief, standing off to one side with two of his men, his attention not on her but on the two hundred miners spread out in front of them in the main meeting hall. He was looking for signs of trouble.

She was about to deliver it.

The second step was her undoing. Her damned shoe missed the metal strip, landing on bare wood. Her left ankle twisted outward, almost sending her crashing down the steps. Her right hand shot out and grabbed the podium’s faux wood edge.

As far as she was concerned this near-fall added one more point toward tossing the damned shoes into the incinerator as soon as she got off this stage.

A curse dangled on her lips before being pulled back and twisted into a grin, primarily because of the live mike only inches from her face.

With this crowd, it’d probably be considered foreplay.

Wolf whistles followed her every move. Two hundred hungry men waiting for her. Wanting her to deliver the goods they’d been promised.

Another dozen or so women were watching from an office somewhere. The women assigned to Branson Prime worked the administrative positions, keeping the ink flowing to keep the base alive. Only a smattering but they were potential customers and the Guild prepared for every eventuality.

They were already segregated from the men in the work areas and it continued for this presentation, allowing them to watch the show without commentary from the male staff. It wasn’t just out of politeness—it was good business. Let them see the wares without judging or being judged by their male associates.

Another day, another show.

Andrew Trainer, the foreman, stepped away from the podium. A minute later and he was in the front row of eager spectators, dressed in the same drab grey clothing as the rest of the miners. The only thing showing his rank was a black stripe on one sleeve. He wiped the sweat from his forehead on his sleeve even though the room was cool, the air-conditioning roaring over the crowd.

Sam gave him a wink, causing the dark-haired man to rock back and forth on the metal bench.

Inside she laughed. If she could get a rise out of the old guard with nothing more than a wink, she might have a damned riot on her hands by the end of the presentation.

Her lips twitched once, and then curved into a smile.

She’d enjoy a riot. It’d been a long time since she got in a good old-fashioned brawl, two landfalls ago when some idiot thought he’d jump the line when she was walking through the landing bay on the way to trade some books with the base library. If she hadn’t gotten to him first he might have not survived the rough justice being handed out by his fellow miners.

It’d been a pleasure to kick his ass. Almost as good as sex.

Speaking of—

“Hello, Branson Prime,” she purred into the microphone, grimacing as her vocal cords protested at going so low and slow. It was a necessary evil; her command voice wasn’t going to work here.

The resounding cheer was deafening. She withdrew a small data chip from her pocket and inserted it into the waiting slot on the console. The yelling subsided when she waved them down, but a low murmur continued to run through the crowd, a delicious anticipation of what was to come.

“I’m Sam Keller, Captain of the Bonnie Belle—that sweet little Mercy ship that docked with your fine manufacturing facility an hour ago. And I’m here to declare that we are—” she paused for three heartbeats, seeing the hungry eyes, “—open for business!”

The two hundred-plus miners jumped to their feet as one, stomping their booted feet in a deafening chorus. Given the sparse decorations they looked more like prisoners than potential customers. But they were buyers and she was here to sell a product.

She pointed at the large screens set around the mess hall as they flashed to life, the bright pictures drawing yells from the workers. Usually they displayed boring litanies of production quotas and the occasional sports competition piped in from the inner planets. Now they rotated through the images of the six courtesans, expertly posed and photographed to provide the most titillation for the money. No outright nudity, just a flash of skin here and a wink there. More than enough material to fuel a man’s or woman’s fantasies for those long, dark, lonely nights out here on the edge of colonized space.

“Two hundred credits an hour and you can do anything you want.” She leaned over the podium and pressed her lips to the microphone, letting the zipper on the jumpsuit “accidentally” slide down just enough to exaggerate her cleavage.

It’d taken Jenny a week of oil and sweat to loosen the zipper enough to get it to come down on cue. But it was well worth it, every time.

“Anything.” She exhaled over the black nub, drawing the word out as long as she could.

***

As you can guess the Bonnie Belle's stay doesn't go as planned… but why not plan a visit to the Belle for yourself? Make a date May 12^th to come on board and see what all the fuss is about!

When Sam Keller left the military, she ran to the far end of the galaxy. Now she captains the Bonnie Belle, a spaceship full of courtesans who bring a little pleasure to hard-up men on mining colonies. When one of her girls turns up dead, it’s  Sam’s job to find out who killed her, fast.

Marshal Daniel LeClair is as tough as steel and quick on the draw. But when his vacation gets replaced by an assignment to help find the killer, he can’t help angling for a little action with the saucy, hard-charging Sam. She’s  got brains, attitude and a body he wouldn’t  mind investigating.

Sam, six months lonely, might just indulge him. But the Guild that owns the Belle wants the case closed yesterday. With pressure coming from all quadrants, Sam and her marshal clash over false leads and who’s on top. But when the killer threatens the Belle again, romance will have to wait. It’s a captain’s job to save her crew, no matter the cost.

Pre-order "In the Black" NOW  at Amazon, B&N, iBooks and Google Play!

Thanksgiving - What will it look like in the future?

While the American holiday of Thanksgiving has been celebrated from Colonial times, it wasn’t until the American Civil War that President Abraham Lincoln decreed it would be each year in November. When the first European settlers landed in the New World in Massachusetts Bay, they stayed in their ship for the winter – where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and disease. Scurvy is caused by a lack of Vitamin C, and British sailors would be given limes in later years – hence the term “limey” to refer to a British navy man.

Or, alternatively, to a really scary British father looking for his daughter's killer, but I digress...

According to many, the first Thanksgiving festival was held in 1621 as decreed by the Governor, William Bradford. The festival lasted for three days and is a fall harvest festival. Alternatively, some have argued that the festival in 1621 was not the first Thanksgiving on American soil, but that Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilé held the first such festival on American soil.

(Pedro Menéndez de Avilé)

Others say it was in December of 1619. Native American peoples object to the celebration and portrayal of the holiday, saying that it glosses over the violence and bloodshed between the European settlers and the indigenous population already living here.

Regardless of the exact lineage of the holiday in America, it is certainly true that Harvest Festivals have occurred since ancient times. While many of the trappings of ancient celebrations have not survived to present day, gathering around a family table with our loved ones to celebrate with a large meal is something likely to continue. How might it look in a hundred years?

Assuming we don’t suffer an environmental cataclysm, it’s probably safe to say we will have turkeys. I think, though, that due to the rising population of people of Mexican descent, we will probably have other dishes incorporated into the traditional fare. Perhaps Turkey with Molé Sauce (composed of chocolate and chili and spices) will be on the traditional table of the future. It is probable that other sources of protein will become more popular, particularly as populations rise; soy is a viable and sustainable alternative for protein. Tofurky is a brand of today; will we have Tofurkey on the traditional table of the future? (My husband shouts “No!” in a resounding voice, but people a hundred years from now will see food differently and might not be as stuck on having meat at every meal.)

Mashed potatoes are a stable item in traditional Thanksgiving meals, but the starch place on the table is taken up by bananas in a large portion of the world (over 50% of the population of the earth consider the banana to be a staple food). In the U.S., the common “banana” is the Cavendish variety, and these trees have suffered a cataclysmic blight and may well be extinct in the next ten years. This will lead the American consumer to have to select a different banana from the over 500 types available – and it’s possible that one might “take off” as the next starch in our diet. Plantains instead of mashed potatoes might grace the table of the future.

How will we prepare the meal of the future? As fossil fuel prices continue to rise and reserves to fall, it’s probable that what we take for granted in terms of transportation today (trucks and trains, ocean liners and air freight) will not look that way in the future. As the localvore movement expands (placing a strong focus on foods purchased from local farmers), regionalization of the Thanksgiving menu is likely to occur. Rather than the homogenization of the menu, we might have regional favorites – beef in the upper Midwest, fish on the coasts, etc.

One thing uniquely American is the pumpkin. Found in the New World by the settlers, it’s become ubiquitous and a symbol of Thanksgiving and of Autumn (who has seen Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latté?), and as such it’s likely to continue. But with rising obesity rates in the American population, will we continue to indulge in pie?

I hope, since I love pumpkin pie, that we don’t take it off the table but instead change how we relate to the dinner itself. Rather than settle on the couch afterward to watch a football game, what if we started a tradition of walking? Perhaps the Thanksgiving of the future will have elements more like the “Trick or Treat” of Halloween where folks wander from house to house, sharing a beverage and conversation.

There’s another angle we haven’t considered yet, and that’s whether or not we’ll even be ON this planet in a hundred years. Richard Branson is hard at work, developing his in-space hotel, and President Obama has spoken of revitalizing the space program and missions to the moon, Mars, and the International Space station. It’s entirely probable that humans will be in space in a hundred years, so our Thanksgiving meals might be in small packets to avoid mucking up the zero-gravity space we’re living in. Vegetables might be raised in hydroponics on a space station or even a Moon colony. Your turkey might even come from a farm on the Sea of Tranquility (the site of the first moon landing in 1969).

Whatever the tradition, I think some form of celebration of the harvest will continue long into the future. I hope that you have your own traditions and, if not, that you decide this year to start them. After all, “First Annual” is a perfectly fine title for a tradition that could have a long, long lineage.

May you have much to be thankful for and always remember to be grateful.

References:

History .com, “Thanksgiving” A&E Television Networks, 1996-2011, http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/ Accessed 11/21/2011

Crosta, Peter, “What Is Scurvy? What Causes Scurvy?” MNT (Medical News Today),
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/155758.php Accessed 11/21/2011

To Dream of Electric Sheep

Greetings, Kittens!

I grew up on science fiction and fantasy and have loved them both since before I could read. My mother would come home with bags of books from the library and I would get to go through them and pick out the covers I liked. She’d read me the blurbs and explain the story and we’d decide which one to start first. Throughout her reading, I would come back and get chapter updates, or what at four years old I thought was chapter by chapter, and I got to experience the twist and turns of faraway worlds and duplicitous human nature.

I learned to read later that same year, but I got those updates until I was eight and could read the same books on my own. By then, I knew the kinds of worlds that waited for me and I couldn’t wait. Much to my delight it would only get better, as sub-genres grew and spawned sub-genres of their own. Cross-genre works would further open the field, and by the time I would start publishing some twenty plus years later, the doors of what could be done would be thrown wide open.

Despite my absolute love of Cyberpunk and its subgenres Biopunk and Nanopunk, I don’t embrace the dystopian mindset of technology as our downfall. Blame or credit Star Trek as you will, but I have the fundamental belief that technological advancement, is human advancement. And as it has for my lifetime so far, technology will continue to make things easier, make the world smaller and make democracy a truer force.

The terms I’ve come across to embody that belief are NeoCyberpunk and Cyberprep, but I use Futurist Paranormal to describe my genre. My stories brim with shifters, psychics, ghost and vampires, all set in near-future worlds. The open acknowledgement of the supernatural and acceptance of possibilities, directly results in more advanced day to day technology. It has touches of cyberpunk and biopunk, with the pervasiveness of the technology and biological implants/manipulation, but the technology has merely moved us forward, often for the better. The worlds still have their issues, but the society has clearly embraced scientific advancement on all fronts.

That’s not to say I don’t have a story or three in the back of my head that's dark and harsh. I love the post-apocalyptic genre as well, and I have my fair share of catastrophic plotlines to come. There’s just something darkly beautiful about watching humanity persevere against the odds. But when it comes to the prediction of technology and its applications, I feel that as long as communication tech keeps us informed, and science is tempered by ethics, we’re more than on track to live better, rather than suffer at the hands of our own genius.

I’m happy to admit that I didn’t set out to write futurist fiction. I didn’t even originally recognize that I’d done so. It came to me as a logical extension of preternatural minds in the tech field, able to advance unchecked. I realized the habit only after seeing it written about me by a reviewer. I sat back and realized that every single story done, and all of those in queue at the time, had the same futurist bent. It just goes to show, we write what we’re drawn to and can’t escape the things we love and the journeys that define our worldview.

What about all of you? What subgenres do you draw from again and again within your work? What are your thoughts on future tech and where it will take us?

~X

*The title of this post is from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick . The book is the basis for movie Blade Runner. The image is from Tokyocypberpunk.com

At the Beginning...

Whenever someone talks about futuristic fiction I always find myself turning back to the classics - both in movie and in books. Here's a few of my favs that I think you'll agree are some of the best when talking about the future.

One of the first ones that comes to mind is the classic movie Metropolis - if you haven't heard, this year they released a new version of the film finally pieced together after years of retrieving bits cut out after the initial showing. Paired with a silent movie soundtrack it's easily the best version around. I look at the images and just wonder how, back before World War II, how these minds came up with these visions of the future.

I should point out that if you can get your hands on the original Metropolis novel, it's well worth reading. It might seem a bit dry and preachy for the present-day but the language is a powerful reminder of how much words matter. And the heart!















The next movie that comes to mind is a version of H.G. Wells' "Things To Come" - dealing with a futuristic version of the world that starts off much like our own but takes a drastic twist after what, for them, is World War Two and projects a new society far into the future. Wells actually wrote the screenplay for this movie based on his book and it gives us images that may seem familar today but were extraordinary for 1936.















And last, but no means least, let's remember The Time Machine. Based on another H.G. Wells novel, originally published in 1895, it extrapolates a world where once again war takes over - but society eventually evolves into a kinder, gentler version - as long as you don't look too closely. The movie was released in 1960 with Rod Taylor and became an instant classic. Taylor's pretty easy on the eyes too, I must admit.



If you've never read the original novels I encourage you to get thee hence to a bookstore or grab the ebook copies for some faboo reading. These classic novels show a version of the future that came eerily close to the truth and shows the depth of the human imagination.

Are we headed for a Hunger Games in our future or a Mad Max? Are we going to end up in the dysfunctional world of Logan's Run or the idealistic world of Star Trek? Who knows, but by looking into our past we might just see some of the future.

Where Have All the Punks Gone?

The closing of CBCG signaled the end of an era for the modern punk. In a bitter irony, the old club space has been taken over by men’s fashion designer John Varvatos. Ouch.

But the spirit of the punk lives on, and not just in music. Punk was always about people making their own way, not depending on anyone to do it for them, and a rejection of the commercial. Sometimes that freedom expressed itself in violent, self-destructively anarchic ways, but some of the art and attitudes that sprang from the movement were also mind-blowingly inventive, displaying the DIY ethic that ran deep in Punk's veins.

Two current trends in genre fiction use the ‘punk’ suffix, but they couldn’t be further away from each other in many ways.

Cyberpunk hit the books long before Steampunk, so we’ll start there.

Cyberpunk is dark. There’s no getting around it. It’s the way the Punks of the 20th century – marginalized, alienated, dismissed and rejected – viewed the future. A future often run by corporations, rather than democratically elected governments. A future where we were in the final stages of killing off the Earth, where technology was power.

There’s no beautiful utopian vision of peace and prosperity in cyberpunk, where everyone is equal and no one needs money to get what they need.

No. Cyberpunk is deeply and insidiously dystopian. A future that is grim and gray and violent, ruled by rapacious greed. The protagonists of cyberpunk stories written by Philip K. Dick or William Gibson aren’t what we usually call “heroic” in romance terms, and the endings are rarely happy.

The unfortunately short-lived Shomi line from Kensington (Edit: Jeannie Lin says it was from Dorchester) featured futuristic, cyberpunk plots and settings, but it was difficult to pull off the HEA when each story started in such a dark place. Not that it couldn’t be done, but they weren’t often traditionally feel-good romances. In fact, the HEA element wasn’t even a requirement of the line, which displayed, in my opinion, a real understanding of how cyberpunk worked.

Steampunk, on the other hand, got its name from a play on words by author K.W. Jeter, who thought the Victorian fantasies that he and a few others were writing should have a name that focused on the use of technology, much as cyberpunk focused on it. Hence, the term “Steampunk” was born.

Right off the bat, it’s easy to see that many of the Punk attitudes and philosophies that inspired Cyberpunk weren’t truly evident in its historical counterpart.

And yet… and yet… The Victorian-inspired fantasies and science fiction often make commentary on history’s politics and policies. Slavery, imperialism, the power of the haves over the have-nots, religious, cultural and sexual attitudes are all touched on in Steampunk.

Putting a heroine in a bustle doesn’t make a story Steampunk any more than dressing a hero in a long leather duster makes him a Cyberpunk Neo.

The punk in both movements is deeply embedded in the world that writers build. The Punk ethos of tinkering and DIY is inherent in the way that Victorian technology progressed.

I think where the two sets diverge is primarily in their view of what comes next. The Victorians in general looked forward to a future of great technological advancement and upward mobility of all socio-economic classes, so their “futuristic” fiction was largely optimistic, much in the way that many of our current non-Punk futuristic writers envision the time to come. Not all fluffy bunnies and cotton candy clouds, of course, but a future in which we’re making our world better. Steampunk, then, is more readily optimistic, despite some of the grim literary offerings from William Gibson and others.

Steampunk literature also often tends to branch into the fantastic more easily than Cyberpunk. Victorian science wasn’t strictly opposed to the idea of alchemy or occultism, so adding magical elements to the technology of the day is less far-fetched than might otherwise be thought. After all, Clarke’s 3rd law states “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

It’s my personal view that Steampunk is most moving, though, when it’s set in a fully realized world that has the same problems that the protagonists in Cyberpunk face. Political and commercial greed, abuse of power, marginalization of segments of society – problems that are sadly eternal, part of the human condition. When we face those issues, even in our feel-good literature, we can move people to forward progress.

The Ramones are dead, CBCG is gone, but the things that made Punk so powerful live on.

New Books from Bianca

I've got two new releases this month! First, GRADY'S AWAKENING will be debuting on August 18th from Samhain Publishing.

It's the story of Grady Prime, an alien super soldier who is beginning to learn what it means to be human. The story brings him together with Gina, a martial arts champion and spy, and her other true mate, Jim, the leader of a ragtag band of human survivors. Together, the three of them figure out how to live and love in the post-apocalyptic world where only the strong survive. You can read an excerpt online by clicking here.

Then I have another menage story coming out later this month. It's a short story that will hopefully be the start of a new series. It's called TAG TEAM and it will be released by Total-E-Bound on August 24th.

TAG TEAM is the first of my Gemini Project stories. The Gemini Project is an experiment to produce psychically enhanced warriors, who are able to share their thoughts in teams of two. They are invaluable as special operators, but what happens when they fall in love?

Check them out if you get a chance! I'm also happy to show off the cover for my first Kensington Brava release, a 2-author anthology called HALF PAST DEAD, coming in January 2010. Isn't the cover awesome?

My story in the anthology is called SIMON SAYS and it features a military hero battling a medical experiment run amok. Zombies are attacking people in the woods near a military base and it's up to Simon and his ex-girlfriend, a Navy doctor, to stop the killing and bring the situation under control. Of course, they didn't count on falling in love along the way...

I'm busy writing my first full-length zombie novel right now. It should be out in March 2010 from Kensington Brava. More news on that as it becomes available. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the new books this month! And don't forget to check out the contest we're holding for an ebook reader. Details are on my blog.

New Books and Vacation Fun

June is an exciting month for me. Two new releases - one in print and one in ebook. Since the ebook is a new paranormal, let's talk about that one first. INFERNO is the long-awaited sequel to LORDS OF THE WERE. It features Dante, the vampire bad boy we meet first in LORDS OF THE WERE, and his fey knight friend, Duncan. The heroine is a lone werewolf, sent to spy on Dante. What ensues is a scorching hot sexy adventure. The book comes out on June 30th from Samhain Publishing.

The second release this month - which really precedes the release of INFERNO - is JACI'S EXPERIMENT, the third book in my RESONANCE MATES series. Another hot menage novel, this book is set in a post-apocalyptic world where aliens have taken over and only a few psychically talented humans survive. To ensure the continuation of the human race, the humans must teach the aliens what it is to feel and especially what it is to love.


In addition to all this release excitement, I've been traveling since the beginning of the month, on a massive road trip that has taken me from coast to coast. I'm having a grand time, filing away all sorts of information on the country - its different terrains and flavors. Writers never really go on vacation - we're always storing away sights, sounds, tastes and smells to use in our books. So this trip is really "research"! LOL!

I'm having a great time and will report more about my travels when I get back home towards the end of the month. :)

Bianca
http://www.biancadarc.com

Big News & New Releases!

First, I have some really good news: It looks like I'll be writing for Kensington! I've been offered a spot in an upcoming anthology. The book will feature two stories - one by me and one by the lovely and talented Zoe Archer. The kicker? Both of the stories feature zombies! Yes, you heard that right. Zombie romance stories.

In my case, my hero is not a zombie. He's the spec ops warrior they call in to hunt the zombies. ;-) So my story is set in the contemporary world. Zoe's is an historical zombie romance. Cool, huh? The anthology will be coming out from Kensington's Brava line in January 2010. When I know more, I'll be sure to pass it on.

In the meantime, I'd like to mention my new releases. In print this month, we have Jaci's Experiment. It's part of my futuristic menage Resonance Mates series and it seems to be available now on Amazon. (Though technically, it wasn't supposed to be out until June. Oh, well.) Here's a little bit about it:

Love... the grandest experiment of all.

As a young Alvian lab tech, Jaci knows her place in the orderly, emotionless society her race has established on the planet Earth. While preparing a batch of experimental skin patches, she is accidentally exposed to a gene-altering agent. In a matter of days, she's assaulted with raw, primitive, forbidden emotions she has no clue how to handle. If her superiors find out, she's a dead woman. Her only hope is to seek help from the human test subjects held captive in pens below the city.

Before the aliens came, cousins Mike and Dave used their psychic abilities to their advantage in business dealings. Now they use them to stay alive, keeping a sharp telepathic eye out for ways to help themselves and others improve their lot.or escape. Their friendship with Jaci has always been more than simply captives and caretaker. Now that her DNA has changed, their shared resonance is the stuff of legend. Inevitably, Jaci's emotions expose her to deadly Alvian justice. Suddenly she's in the race of her life, seeking the only safety she's ever known... in the arms of her human Resonance Mates.

Next, I'd like to share a little about my upcoming ebook title, Inferno. This book will be available in print in 2010, but you can read the ebook version on June 30th. It's the long-awaited sequel to Lords of the Were and tells the vampire Dante's story.

Don't you just love that cover? It's another Anne Cain masterpiece! The story is mostly a menage, though it ends up as a devoted m/f couple at the conclusion, so be forewarned. It picks up where Lords of the Were ended, following Dante and the fey knight Duncan's progress. They've gone to New York to enjoy some nightlife and then a lone wolf bitch enters their sphere.

She's been sent to spy on Dante, but even more foul attempts to kill him are afoot. When hellfire and magefire start flying in their direction, the three must work together to stave off evil from entering this realm.The book will be out in eformats from Samhain Publishing on June 30th. For more information as it becomes available and to read the full blurb, visit my website at http://www.biancadarc.com/.

Until next time,
Bianca

Poison in print

This month I have a new print release, Poison. It will be released at the end of the month at Amazon and other places, but it's already available at Barnes and Noble, Books-a-million and Powells, which is very cool.

Anne Cain did this absolutely lovely cover, and I adore it. Here's the blurb:

In this world, trust is hard to find…and the one thing they need to survive.

Tobias Smator lives down his late father’s execution by avoiding the spotlight—and responsibility. He doesn’t mind what people think of him as long as they leave him alone. Still, in this unremarkable half-life he’s fashioned for himself on deceptively low-tech Rimania, he’s not safe from political intrigue. Someone wants him dead.

Alliance operative Geln Marac’s orders for his first assignment were simple: Stay uninvolved. Those orders go out the window, however, when he delivers an antidote to save Tobias from death by poisoning. His reward? Possible betrayal that lands him in the hands of police interrogators. To protect the Alliance, Geln resorts to a temporary mindwipe.

Tobias is fascinated by the amnesiac man who saved his life. But Geln has attracted the attention of the high-powered Lord Eberly, who would use him as a pawn. Rather than sacrifice Geln to the political wolves, Tobias chooses to embrace his heritage.

Geln’s memory reawakens to a precarious situation with no source of protection—except Tobias. There’s only one way forward for both of them.

Trust—or die.

You can read an excerpt here.

Do You Believe in Psychic Abilities? New in Print

I hope you got everything you wanted for the holidays! I got some very thoughtful gifts from dear people and the gifts keep coming... not physicial items, but good wishes, love and cheer. I also feel like my publisher gave me a little gift this year, in the form of my newest print release, which comes out officially tomorrow.

A lot of you know all about Davin's Quest, so I won't bore you with all the details, except to say that I've long awaited the release of this in print. It's a sci fi/futuristic tale that features people with psychic abilities and some very hunky aliens.

When I first decided to write this series, I wanted to blend a few different elements from my favorite genres to create something a little different. I took a post-apocalyptic setting - a future Earth after a great cataclysm where only people with psychic abilities have survived. But I didn't want it to be a really dark world. I didn't want it to be depressing and bleak. Sure, bad things happen, but I was focussing on the fight against the darkness and the struggle to reestablish the human race's place in the world through love and covert operations. ;-)

I also wanted people to have extra-sensory abilities, but I didn't want to limit it to a single ability. Some people are telepathic, some have the gift of foresight, some telekinetic and so on. Some even have multiple talents. I like to mix it up. It makes it more interesting to write and hopefully more interesting to read.

I'm a strong believer in power of the human mind. I think there are probably untapped potentials in all of us - all that brain capacity we don't use - there's got to be something to that. Don't you think? Perhaps in some future evolution of humanity, we'll use more of our brains and be more than we are now... it's a future worth pondering.

If you think like me on the topic, check out my Resonance Mates series, of which Davin's Quest is the second book. I think you might like it! Happy New Year!

Buy Davin's Quest in Print from Amazon - Buy Davin's Quest in eBook from MBAM

Bianca D'Arc
Come over to The D'Arc Side... http://www.biancadarc.com/

Poison

My new book, a futuristic m/m romance entitled Poison is now on sale at My Bookstore and More!

Didn't Anne Cain do a fantastic job with the cover?

Here’s the blurb:

In this world, trust is hard to find…and the one thing they need to survive.

Tobias Smator lives down his late father’s execution by avoiding the spotlight—and responsibility. He doesn’t mind what people think of him as long as they leave him alone. Still, in this unremarkable half-life he’s fashioned for himself on deceptively low-tech Rimania, he’s not safe from political intrigue. Someone wants him dead.

Alliance operative Geln Marac’s orders for his first assignment were simple: Stay uninvolved. Those orders go out the window, however, when he delivers an antidote to save Tobias from death by poisoning. His reward? Possible betrayal that lands him in the hands of police interrogators. To protect the Alliance, Geln resorts to a temporary mindwipe.

Tobias is fascinated by the amnesiac man who saved his life. But Geln has attracted the attention of the high-powered Lord Eberly, who would use him as a pawn. Rather than sacrifice Geln to the political wolves, Tobias chooses to embrace his heritage.

Geln’s memory reawakens to a precarious situation with no source of protection—except Tobias. There’s only one way forward for both of them.

Trust—or die.

Warning: this book contains hot nekkid otherplanetary manlove.

Read an excerpt.
On sale here.

Obviously this was written under my Joely Skye pen name. It was actually written a few years ago when I was reading a lot of science fiction. I had a lot of fun with this one!

Bianca's New Print Releases

Today I'm going to shamelessly plug three books of mine that are now available in print! First off, Sons of Amber came out today and is the compilation of my first two Sons of Amber stories - Ezekiel and Michael - in print. (Buy Link)

Here's a little bit about this book:

When an alien virus decimates humanity, Dr. Amber Waithe creates a small group of men who are immune. These genetically engineered supermen are the Sons of Amber. Their mission: to repopulate the human worlds. Of course, nobody expects them to fall in love.

Ezekiel - Crash landing on a strange desert world, Ezekiel is rescued by an angel who nurses him back to health. The small community of humans could be the only uninfected colony in the galaxy and he must protect them at all costs. Likewise, he must protect Angela - his angel - the one woman he wants like no other in the universe.

Michael - Commandant and soldier, when Michael hears women are being abducted, he goes undercover with his executive officer to nab the pirates. But playing the role of submissive female is something Leah, his competent XO, isn't sure she can do. Michael proves to her she not only can, but will enjoy the Dominant games he plays so well because he just can't live without her.

Hara's Legacy will be releasing in print tomorrow! It's the first book in my Resonance Mates series. (The second book in the series, Davin's Quest is already available in ebook formats and will be in print around New Year's.)

Here's the tagline for Hara's Legacy:

The first in a series of stories set in a future Earth, where the survivors of humanity must teach the Earth's new inhabitants what it means to be human... and to love.

For some odd reason, this book is already available through Amazon, though Samhain hasn't officially released it yet. (Buy Link) Same goes for my third print release this month, the I Dream of Dragons anthology, volume one. (Buy Link) I won't give you a lot on that book, due to the limits of space, but I will say it contains my Dragon Knights novella, Wings of Change, along with two other awsome stories by Summer Devon and Marie Harte.

I'm just thrilled that all these books are finally getting their day in print. I'm a little overwhelmed to have them all come out at once, but that seems to be the way things go for me - things releasing all at once with long wait times in between. Weird, huh?

Ingram's Charm released!

Ingram's Charm
Gram expects cash for payment. What he gets
is Charm. A beautiful sex slave, only too willing
to share the delights of his body. Charm's
supposed to be a spy. But she falls in love. Will
she betray Ingram or become his lucky Charm?

For more info...


Melissa Lopez
JOURNEYS OF LOVE every woman needs to take.