As a writer, I have learned two things: 1) characters pop into your head and will not leave you alone until you satisfy their ego (i.e.; write their story) and 2) People think you’re crazy when you start talking about the hero and heroine as if they’re REAL PEOPLE. And because, as the writer, you don’t think you’re crazy, then you’re even crazier because you’re in denial…

Well, Noah drove me crazy. For a big guy who doesn’t talk much, he sure got annoying. That’s why Guarding Jess is Noah’s story – it was the only way I could sleep peacefully. When I first started plotting this story, I had to try and think of a strong woman who could match my hero, but would also tease out his gentler side. The initial plotting stage also happened to coincide with my interaction with a tel-co customer service representative from hell.

Have you ever had one of those experiences when someone was so incredibly rude that it took your breath away, left you shaking with rage and utterly flabbergasted that the company actually continued trading with such poor representation? When I shared my story with others… wow, it was like opening the floodgates. I heard stories about rude behaviour at parties, at soccer games, in parking lots – during job interviews!

That got us all talking about manners, etiquette, and BANG! Jessica Pennington, my heroine, emerged. I needed to study etiquette – and I’ve learned it is an absolutely fascinating subject. For example, the origin of the handshake was so folks could greet each other (possibly on a country road) and show that by using their right hand they were bearing no weapons, and not intending to attack. A friendly greeting. The word ‘etiquette’ came from the French, meaning ‘ticket’. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the French royal court would draw up daily lists (tickets) of events, and include an expected dress code.

So etiquette and manners are a general observance and consideration of those around you, with our social interactions. As with all things, you’ve got to take the good with the bad – the social faux pas – or as I call it, the ‘whoopsy’. You know what I mean, when you say or do something that is so embarrassingly wrong… who else has been asked when their baby is due WHEN THEY’RE NOT PREGNANT!!!??? That’s my favourite. There’s no going back after that one.

I’m going to share a whoopsy with you. I once introduced a friend to another very good friend, one whom I’ve known for many years – only to get the second friend’s name wrong. I still haven’t lived it down. Or there was that time when I was absently watching my child do something funny and burst out laughing – at a funeral. Or that – no, wait! I’ve told you mine, now you tell me yours: what have you said/done at an inappropriate time, and wished the earth would open up and swallow you? A comment will be randomly selected to receive a copy of the book that started the whole McCormack Security Agency series, Viper’s Kiss!

Here is an excerpt from Guarding Jess – hope you enjoy!

Something clicked loudly in the brown parcel Jessica was holding, and all three of them looked at it. Jessica froze, a chill spreading over her shoulders and down her arms.
Ollie froze. “Was that—?”
“Yes,” Jessica whispered.
The man standing in front of her moved with a speed that left her stunned. He grabbed the parcel from her arms and ran to the office corridor. He pulled open the garbage chute and tossed the package in. He turned and raced straight for her.
“Take cover,” he yelled.
Jessica’s mouth dropped open in horror as screams filled the office. Before her brain could register the danger, a hard body hit hers, tackling her to the ground and rolling her along the carpeted floor. An explosion splintered the glass doors to reception. The floor they lay upon trembled. Jessica managed a terrified peek over a broad shoulder before it obscured her view, and the hard body covered hers protectively.
Smoke filled the reception area, and foul-smelling embers floated to the floor.
She turned wide eyes from the falling ash to the man lying on top of her, his chocolate-brown gaze eyeing her with a calm intensity.
Ollie’s pale face popped into her peripheral vision.
“He isn’t the client, Jess,” she said shakily. “He’s your bodyguard.”

Psst… for the month of May only, Guarding Jess has the special sale price of $0.99 – so get it quick

Shannon Curtis has worked as a switchboard operator, dangerous goods handler, logistics centre supervisor and real estate administration manager, and now writes copy and content by day, romantic suspense by night!

Follow me on Twitter: @2BShannonCurtis
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Visit my website: www.shannoncurtis.com
Visit my blog: http://shannoncurtis.wordpress.com/

“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.”
–Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

We’ve all gone through storms in our life, some have been fleeting, nothing more than a bit of wind and rain, others have pelted us from all sides, bringing the cold darkness and volatile lightning with it.

Oliver Shaw, the hero from EDGE OF LIGHT, came to me in a flash of dark and gritty prologue unlike anything I had ever written. He was so broken. He’d long since lost the will to fight for his life. He no longer believed in anything outside his small cell. And as he turned to the fermented fruit in one corner and began to paint the walls with a mural of home, I knew, with an almost obsessive certainty, that I had to write his story and find a reason for him to go on.

I’m not a dark and tormented person. I wear my rose-colored glasses, having inherited my dad’s “tomorrow will take care of itself” philosophy. But this book poured out of me from some undefinable place. It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer in the summer of 2010, that I realized I’d been writing this book while completely unaware my body was turning on me.

My cancer had grown into a prison, every bit as solid and impenetrable as Oliver’s. And just like Oliver, I had to learn to reach for the light. I finished EDGE OF LIGHT while recuperating from my colon resection surgery, uncertain of what the future held for me. What followed was six months of chemotherapy and then preparation for a major secondary surgery.

During that time, I clung to my faith. I became best friends with hope. I discovered the difference between surviving day-to-day and living for each day. Now, over one year (and counting!) post chemo, I am cancer free.

It is such an honor and excitement to be here to share EDGE OF LIGHT with all of you. Oliver’s journey is intense and difficult to read at times, but it is my wish that amidst the pulse-pounding action, the chilling villains, and the emotional love story, you will find a greater appreciation for the storms in your own life.

As Alexandre Dumas writes in The Count of Monte Cristo, the book Oliver uses as his journal, “All human wisdom is contained in these two words–’Wait and Hope’.”

Please visit my website to enter my EDGE OF LIGHT giveaway. Win Oliver’s journal, Cambodian money pendants, copies of EDGE OF LIGHT and more!

And now I’d like to open up the blog. Feel free to post any questions you may have about my story or share one of your own. What has made you reach for the light?

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EDGE OF LIGHT

Taken prisoner by a ruthless group of anarchists deep in the Cambodian jungle, anthropologist Jocelyn Hewitt is isolated in a dark prison cell. Without chance of rescue. Or hope. Until the man in the next cell reaches out to let her know she’s not as alone as she thinks.

CIA agent Oliver Shaw has been held prisoner for over two years. Forced to witness the brutal torture and slow murder of his entire team, his spirit is not just broken, it’s crushed. He no longer believes in hope. Until he hears Jocelyn through the wall, and suddenly feels like a glimpse of light is trying to reach in…

Jocelyn’s heart aches for the tortured man whose presence and voice give her the courage to risk their escape. But first she’ll have to remind Oliver who he once was, what he once loved, and bring him back to life. Only then will they have a chance for freedom—and the kind of love neither ever thought possible.

Buy EDGE OF LIGHT from Carina Press, Amazon, B&N. EDGE OF LIGHT is also available as an audiobook from Avdible!

Cynthia is a former Romance Writers of America Golden Heart® Finalist in Romantic Suspense. She started out writing contemporary romance, but when all her plots began to turn dastardly, she decided to stop fighting the urge to throw explosions, dead bodies, and evil villains into her books.

With her B.S. in the chemical sciences and her love of the periodic table (yes, she’s a geek and proud of it!) she finally found the perfect potent mix of love and danger to put into her stories.

Cynthia lives in Arizona with her real life hero husband and their two sons. Visit her website, connect with her on Twitter, find her on Facebook.

“Ah. Rum and a new flintlock. Brings a tear to me eye.” ~ Henri, The Siren’s Song

Pirates sure loved their liquor. Who could forget the Pirates of the Caribbean scene where Elizabeth Swann burn’s Jack’s stash on a deserted spit of land to signal a passing ship for help. Poor Jack was beside himself. Oh yes, pirates loved their sauce. Perhaps it was pirate Richard Haines who said it best with this sentiment. “A life without liberty is not worth living. But a life with liberty and no beer mug ain’t much better.” Hear! Hear!

As colorful as pirates were, both in fact and fiction, so were their choices of poison. They guzzled rum, beer, brandy, and wines.

But man needs water to survive. Fresh water, also known as sweet water, was a precious commodity because stagnant water often soured in their casks. Think – slime in the ice machine. Yuck! So to make the water more palatable, rum, beer, or wine was added. The mixture was called grog and was rationed out to crewmen daily.

Pirates were quite creative in their elixir concoctions, too.

Bumboo was an alcoholic beverage of rum, sugar, lemon and lime juices, and nutmeg. Drink this, mate, and you may stave off a bout of scurvy.

Arrack was made from fermented fruits, grain, and sugar cane. Toke was liquor made from fermented honey. I’m not entirely convinced that these drinks were sweet to taste.

Kill-Devil rum included booze, beer, and raw eggs. Eww!

Hangman’s Blood, a potent medley of various strong liquors, could knock even the most hardened fellow on his arse. It was probably best not to smoke while drinking this mixture for fear of igniting. Whoosh!

In The Siren’s Song, pirate Captain Thayer Drake’s rum drinking is one battle he can’t seem to win. Perhaps Gilly, the beautiful songstress he saved from drowning, will help him kick the habit. But not after one particularly exasperating evening with her. Instead, he hits the bottle harder than usual, stirring gunpowder into his rum. Yes, pirates did do this. Gunpowder contains saltpeter which was believed to deaden sexual desires. It was also thought to inspire courage and aggression before heading off into battle.

To read an excerpt of The Siren’s Song, click here.

Want more? Click here for your copy of The Siren’s Song.

As far as swilling goes, I think I’d fit in just fine with the pirate brethren. From rum and cola to the fruitier Jamaican Sunrise, I love rum drinks. What’s your favorite rum drink? Not a fan of rum? What is your adult beverage of choice?

Jennifer Bray-Weber hopes to one day live out her life as the island goddess she was meant to be somewhere in the Caribbean. Until then, she lives in her native state of Texas with her real life pillage-and-plunder husband and two spirited daughters. Catch up with her at www.jbrayweber.com.

From Fast Company comes an article on how to stay creative while you’re insanely busy. The article advice is geared more towards growing companies, but since I think every author is a growing business, the advice in general seems applicable. Definitely gives you something to think about anyway. In addition to other advice, they suggest, “Be busy enough to create what you want to create, but not so busy you compromise the breathing space required to be creative.” Important advice in a time when authors are taking on more and more of the business end of publishing, and less and less of the writing end of publishing!

Mashable offers advice on how to perfect your elevator pitch. I think this is something every author should learn to do, not in order to pitch their book to an editor or agent (in the elevator) but so you can become a more effective representative of your own books. Every time you run into a potential consumer: in the line at the grocery store, at a friend’s party, at a conference, in the park, anywhere someone says “what do you write” how easily are you able to give them a concise summary that will pique their interest and make them want to look it up when they get home? Perfect your elevator pitch and become the best spokesperson/salesperson you can in one minute! Mashable offers a number of tips but the first is “find the sweet spot”. In other words: start your pitch at the right point (and that doesn’t mean the beginning or background of your book!)

Last, in honor of Mother’s Day in the US on Sunday, this wonderful article (and totally not cheesy, I promise) on how we can get our daughters to think big, dream big and believe in themselves. “Don’t marry someone just because you think he’s cute. Find a partner who doesn’t just “look at” you, but who really “sees” you and values what you want.”

Have a great weekend, everyone, and Happy Mother’s Day! And don’t forget, we’re offering three books for $0.99 this week!

Brooke Street: Thief by Ava March, m/m historical novella

Guarding Jess by Shannon Curtis, romantic suspense novel

Let Me In by Callie Croix, erotic contemporary novella

by Amy Wilkins, Harlequin Digital & Carina Press Acquisition Team

If you’re reading this blog, chances are the idea of someone not reading is crazypants. Yet we all probably know someone who just isn’t a reader.

Years ago, I was going on vacation with a friend and she asked me to bring some books for her to read. I asked what kinds she liked and she said “list books” – as in books from Oprah’s picks, bestsellers, award finalists, or generally ones that someone else had picked out. She didn’t care what genres they were, just if they were popular. The examples of “list books she read” ran the gamut of genres – chick lit, classics, thrillers.

I suppose on some level this approach may make sense…if it’s a bestseller or recommended by someone as big as Oprah, it must be good, right? Well, that’s the theory J But as a book nerd, I was aghast. How could someone not know what kinds of books they liked and rely solely on what’s popular? Needless to say, it made choosing books for her difficult, especially since I like genre books – rarely the types of books that make big bestsellers or garner critical acclaim from the NYT or whatnot. I don’t think I was very successful in my recommendations.

My fiancé isn’t much of a reader, either. He loves Harry Potter, but it was a trial to get him to read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. I’m now trying to convince him to read George R.R. Martin since he likes Game of Thrones on TV is dying to know what happens next…but he just won’t commit to reading the books. What is a book nerd to do?!

Do you have a non-reader in your life? How do you convince them to give a book (especially a genre book) a try and what would you recommend?

I sat down to get to work and had that feeling something was due. A quick check of the Hello Kitty planner proved my ‘something’s due’ ESP was right on – “finalize Carina blog post”. Last month, I talked about card games (research) and the month prior about a scene in a book. So today I’ll veer into random-interesting territory and give you a look at a writer’s desk, or at least my desk.

1 – The Muses and a girl (Bella, Ryan and Jake). Originally, Ryan and Jake were propped up against the wall behind Pretty. My daughter decided they needed the pink couch and Bella’s company.

2 – Pretty. I named my laptop Pretty because it’s so shiny and pretty, and that’s the reason why I bought it. Hubby, who’s in IT, tried to steer me toward a more practical computer (all I do is use Word, Excel, surf the net, and dabble with Photoshop), but I ignored him and went for the prettiest laptop Bestbuy had to offer.

3 – The best cup ever. Seriously. The little sticker that said it didn’t sweat wasn’t lying. And it takes all evening for ice to melt. Best 12.99 I ever spent.

4 – Planner, magazines, and pile o’notebooks in various sizes. The magazines are good to flip through when I should be writing but am not in the mood to write, and the Hello Kitty planner keeps me on schedule. The notebooks…sometimes all it takes is picking up a pen to jumpstart the muse. I read an article once on how holding a pen hits acupressure points that simulate creativity, and I believe it. Love technology, love the delete key, but there are times when it takes putting pen to paper to get to the emotional heart of a scene.

What’s missing in the picture is my phone. It’s usually right next to Pretty, but I had to use the phone to take the picture. So if you imagine it there, in its turquoise and pink case (selected by kidlet), then you’ll have the complete picture of my writing desk.

I will add, the desk in the basement is a newer phenomenon. I used to write at a little table in the garage in front of the cars and under the cupboards. Very peaceful in the garage. But I had a couple incidents with the pitter-patter of little feet that sounded suspiciously like little furry critter feet, and I relocated to the basement.

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Two of London’s most notorious rakehells, Linus Radcliffe and Robert Anderson, are the best of friends. They share almost everything—clothes, servants, their homes, and even each other’s bed on occasion. The one thing they don’t share: lovers. For while Linus prefers men, Robert prefers women…except when it comes to Linus.

As another Season nears its end, Robert can’t ignore his growing jealousy. He hates watching Linus disappear from balls to dally with other men. Women are lovely, but Linus rouses feelings he’s never felt with another. Unwilling to share his gorgeous friend another night, Robert has a proposition for Linus.

A proposition Linus flatly refuses—but not for the reasons Robert thinks. Still, Robert won’t take no for an answer. He sets out to prove a thing or two to his best friend—yet will learn something about the heart himself.

Buy Link: Brook Street: Rogues

Brook Street: Thief (#1) – get the first book in the trilogy for $0.99 during May
Brook Street: Fortune Hunter (#2)

Ava March is an author of smoking hot M/M historical erotic romances. She loves writing in the Regency time period, where proper decorum is of the utmost importance, but where anything can happen behind closed doors.

Website ** Blog ** Goodreads ** Facebook ** Twitter

This is a question I often posed myself while writing Hunting the Shadows. My characters are genetically enhanced psychics, trained, from the moment their abilities develop, into specialized agents. I’ve always loved stories involving psychics or just the paranormal in general. There’s so many possibilities that can be done. I knew I didn’t want just telepathics. Originally, the virus was going to open up the telepathic pathways and that’s it, but I wanted to expand and push my limits. I didn’t want to lock myself into one ability when there’s so many others that are awesome.

J.C. and his unit are diverse in abilities–healing, telepathy, psychometry, manipulation of the elements, etc. I didn’t purposely mean to balance it out that way, but it happened along the way as I changed and shifted their powers to make the characters unique. While I didn’t go into the secondary characters a whole lot, I did want the reader to get a glimpse of them. Everyone has their strengths and their weaknesses and the men and women in the unit most certainly have theirs—whether it’s not being quite in control or the inability to do something.

Even Superman has his weaknesses. It isn’t possible for a character to not have their own kryptonite.

J.C. isn’t immune. He has the ability to manipulate things at the molecular level, but he doesn’t have control about how much force he can put into it. His level of manipulation is spastic at best because while he knows exactly what he wants to achieve, the results aren’t always what he wants. And sometimes, they can have devastating effects.

With Amy, I knew right away what her abilities and limitations were. They never changed once in all the versions of the book. That said, what did change, was a few ways she did her abilities. She’s a telepathic-empath, but at the same time, there’s levels to her ability that don’t just fall under reading the emotions and mind of others. But she has one major drawback. She can’t go outside because everyone’s minds overwhelm her system—nosebleeds, seizures and eventually aneurysms and coma.

If you could do anything, have any ability what would you choose? Me personally, I think manipulating time would be great to be able to write more in a day. That said, it’d probably be draining and have negative effect on my own body. Despite the costs that would probably come with gifts, what would you pick?

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Hunting the Shadows

Blurb: Amy has spent her life in isolation. Locked away in the Centre, a secret government facility where children with extraordinary abilities are raised as highly skilled fighters, she longs for a normal life. A life where being around people doesn’t overload her sensitive telepathic mind. A life where she can’t see through the eyes of a murderer as he hunts down his next victim…

J.C. Nikolaiev was a top researcher, but when his conscience got the better of him, he tried to destroy his work and free his subjects—and was imprisoned as a traitor. To save himself and prevent more people from dying, J.C. must catch the serial killer stalking the halls of the facility. But his only leads come from a woman whose thoughts have invaded his mind…

Finally out of the psych ward, Amy joins forces with J.C. to find the killer before he closes in on them. Can their growing attraction withstand the truths they uncover?

You can purchase Hunting the Shadows through the Carina Press website, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble.

Alexia Reed is a dark paranormal romantic suspense author. You can find her on Goodreads, Twitter, and Facebook.

I love to re-read. I read hundreds of books every year for pleasure (last year it was over 330) and of those, a good 50-75 can be re-reads. For example, last year I re-read the entire JD Robb In Death series. All 40-some books. Some of those books (like the first, Naked in Death) I’ve read several dozen times, but I’d never done an entire back-to-back series re-read before. I then went on to re-read the entire Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum series. Partly because I was studying the differences and similarites between how the two authors handled character development and story arc over a longer running series with the same characters.This year, I just completed a re-read of Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series and I’ve begun a re-read of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, in preperation for the last book’s release this January. I stopped reading the series at around book 8 or 9 originally, because I realized I had to re-read every time a new book released, in order to remind myself of the story arc and characters. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re big, fat fantasies and there are dozens of characters and numerous story and plot threads to track. So now that the series is coming to its end, I’m re-reading those first books (one a month or so).

Now, despite what I said above, when I am re-reading, very often it’s not always an entire series. Usually, it’s either stand alone books, or one or two books I particularly enjoy from a series. What I find most interesting about my own re-reading is that while my current reading for pleasure doesn’t contain a lot of historical romance, my re-reading is probably 75% historical romance. I re-read The Devil’s Bride by Stephanie Laurens several times a year (currently, I’m listening to it on audiobook), though I don’t re-read any of the rest of the series, except sometimes the first book. I also re-read Julie Garwood’s historical titles on a yearly basis. Don’t ask me to name my favorite, but I can name my top seven, if you’d like. And both Johanna Lindsey and Catherine Coulter have historical romances I enjoy re-reading. Then there’s Johanna Lindsey’s futuristic romance novel Warrior’s Woman, which I have ridiculous love for.

Outside of historical romance, there are a few key contemporary romances I love. Be My Baby by Susan Anderson. Elizabeth Lowell’s “jewel” series (the family is in the jewel business, the series starts with Amber Island). And nudging to the romantic suspense side (another genre I don’t currently read a ton of) I’m in love with Kill and Tell by Linda Howard, as well as her romantic suspense Dream Man. I re-read those frequently.

In the fantasy genre, there are two series I re-read. The first, David Eddings Belgariad. I read that nearly yearly. The other is Elizabeth Haydon’s Rhapsody (from her Symphony of Ages series). Of course, my re-read of that has slowed because it’s not available in digital (much to my frustration, as you can imagine).

And then there’s…well, I won’t keep boring you with everything I re-read. I think you can sense that there’s a lot. Sometimes, a plot line or scene will pop into my head and I’ll be driven to re-read the book (and sometimes first I have to figure out which book it is). Of course, there are also books that I used to re-read but can’t anymore, because the author jumped the shark so badly for me later in the series, that my pleasure in the earlier books isn’t as great as it used to be. Still, I never run out of things I want to read over and over again. And I never get tired of re-reading the books I’ve listed here, and many others.

Now you tell me…are you a re-reader? If so, what do you love to re-read? And if you don’t re-read, is there a specific reason?

Ah, the 80s. A decade of big hair, neon-colored everything, and romance. When I was 12, I stumbled across my mom’s stash of Harlequins (she was totally into the category romances). At that point I was already a big reader–I devoured Judy Blume, every Nancy Drew I could get my hands on, even VC Andrews. But something in me, probably my future uber-romantic self, made me snag one of them for reading.

I cracked that sucker open…and realized exactly what I was missing all this time (it should be noted here that I knew I wasn’t supposed to read them, so I hid in the bathroom–well, that is until my sister ratted me out).

Wowza. So many petals unfurling and unsheathing of swords! So many punishing kisses and angst-filled stares! It was purple-prose heaven, and I gobbled it up. I couldn’t believe my mom was ok with me reading VC Andrews but not this, btw–I’m guessing she never read Flowers in the Attic. haha

Because that was *coughcough* years ago, I don’t remember a lot about that first romance book. But here’s the gist of it:

A woman starts working for a man, who tells her quickly upfront that she’d better not fall in love with him (yeah, the contemporary me is like, WHAAAA…? bwahahaha). Naturally, what does the woman do? She TOTALLY falls in love with him. And then she has a dramatic scene where she tells him she’s in love with him…and leaves!

So, the dude mulls things over and decides to go see her (I can’t remember why–maybe he wanted to proclaim his love, or ask where she’d filed something). When he gets there, she answers the door…wearing a leotard thong and sweat bands. She’d been working out. Go 80s jazzercise!

And that’s all I remember of that book. haha. Pretty epic, eh? Anywho, that started my love of romance–I was hooked. From then on, I was hiding in the bathroom, snagging every book I could find that showed me the unique, compelling journey of someone falling in love.

Just for fun, I’m posting some awesome covers from 80s Harlequin novels. Warning: may cause you to fall in love a white sheikh, rediscover your love of puffy green sleeves, and stare romantically off-screen while a guy who reminds me of Burt Reynolds grips your wrist:

What about you? What’s the first adult book you read? Did it become your “gateway” book into that genre?

How easy it was to disappear.

Those were powerful words. So powerful they created an entire character for me. I read them and stumbled on another world, the world of Donovan Schist.

Those words weren’t from a novel but a history: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. It describes Chicago during the 1893 World’s Fair. It’s about stunning architectural feats and larger-than-life personalities. There’s even a serial killer. But most of all there are missing girls. Lots of missing girls. Erik Larson takes us back to Chicago and shows us, in gruesome detail, what happened to some of those girls.

It isn’t pretty.

I assigned Larson’s book to my American History students when I was teaching. They always loved it despite the fact I made them read it in addition to their regular text. So it’s no surprise that I opened this book one day for fun. I needed something to read and it was there. The best history books are like that: they’re such good stories that you read them like novels.

This time something clicked when I read it. That opening line reverberated through me like an echo in a cave. There was a story here. Not just a story but a person.

Donovan Schist emerged, almost fully formed, from that line. He wasn’t born to walk through 1893 Chicago, though. I created him late at night and I wanted him to do something right away. I wanted to see him in action.

Rather than dredge up my textbooks or trawl the internet to create a believable turn-of-the-century setting, I just started writing. I’d taught the Gilded Era many times, so instead of researching a historical novel, I took my favorite themes and twisted them into caricatures. I bent history to fit the character. Then I let him go like a hound after a rabbit.

The progression from alternate history to Steampunk happened almost unconsciously. I knew a little about Steampunk—I’d read The Difference Engine. I’d seen a lot of Steampunk art and costumes. But I didn’t know how many Steampunk detectives there were. I assumed a lot. ‘Steampunk’ and ‘noir’ felt like they should go together. Donovan proved that.

Noir was very much on my mind at that moment. I’d been watching Veronica Mars and The Dresden Files. Penny Arcade was running their brief but brilliant Automata series. Noir suffused my world. So when I read about missing girls, I naturally jumped to the idea of a hardboiled badass who spent his time finding them.

I started writing about Donovan with no intention of selling the product. If you’ll permit me a whimsy, I wrote the first pages because Donovan made me. When I finished that early foray, there wasn’t a story yet. It stopped abruptly when Donovan got on the “ferry” to the Slags. I had no idea where he’d find poor Bridget or what he’d do with her when he found her. There were a lot of foggy parts that needed to solidify. All that truly existed was Donovan, a stony core at the center of this uncreated world.

Then I went to bed. Like a lot of writers, my harddrive is full of late night kernels waiting to bud. Donovan was just another seed. I forgot about him. I worked on other projects. He probably never would’ve budded except I got an interesting email from a friend. Carina was doing a Christmas Steampunk anthology. It was an Open Call.

The words Open Call glimmer to a writer like the Holy Grail in a knight’s vision.

My friend suggested that we write something together. I sent her the Donovan fragment with the note “why don’t we do something like this?” She took one look at Donovan and told me I needed to develop him on my own. His voice was so distinct even in that small fragment that she didn’t want to intrude.

What followed isn’t very exciting. It was a lot of work. There was a word limit, so my verbose tendencies had to be corralled. Plus I needed to add a seasonal atmosphere since the anthology was going to be released at Christmas.

How do you add Christmas to noir, though? Noir is dark. More precisely, it’s black. There’s not much room for silver bells and holly boughs. There’s beauty to it, alright. But a sordid, almost existential beauty. That beauty would have to be used to create a Christmas element. Naturally, it would be a nontraditional one—but I was hoping that people might appreciate that.

This created Moira Schist. She was the final piece that completed the puzzle. Her relationship with Donovan wasn’t the kind they make a card for. It was tempestuous, with a hint of paranoia. Donovan’s struggle over whether or not to stay with his wife seemed like the kind of conflict a noir character might have at Christmas.

Besides the addition of a wife, Christmas also gave Donovan an overcoat. New York got colder. A wreath or two made it in, too. Then the story ground on as typical noir, which is to say more than a little dreary.

The anthology was printed, but not with Donovan. Carina was interested in the story but felt it didn’t belong in a Christmas collection. I can’t say I blame them. Donovan is the last person you’d invite over for Christmas. He comes from a world that has more in common with the pre-ghost Scrooge than that nice guy who buys the prize turkey for the Cratchits.

In the rewrites I was asked to remove the Christmas elements since they felt added on. I gladly took out the wreaths, though it was harder than you’d think. Ever forget to take down a decoration in your house? Imagine having to take down the decorations for an entire fictional metropolis. We were pulling wreaths out long after my un-Christmas rewrite. If any are still hiding in there, now you know why.

But one Christmas element had to stay. As Donovan would put it:

Moira.

In true Moira fashion, she insinuated herself so strongly that you couldn’t take her out, not even with a crowbar. The Christmas theme, therefore, was like a mother devoured by her own monstrous offspring. It created essential elements of the story only to be taken out in the rewrite.

I’m sure it’s been said before: Books, like children, can’t really be planned. They’re a very intuitive process. Logic has its place. It comes in later to rein things in and create order in the narrative. But for much of the time, you’re groping in the darkness of your mind, hoping to stumble on something good. Donovan wouldn’t approve—he’s much too methodical for that. Hopefully those who read him will.