Forsake This Violent World Teaser

Chapter one of my new story Forsake This Violent World is up on Wattpad! The novella should be out sometime this month, but I'm still working on it. In that vein I thought I'd share a snippet!

:)

FTVW is basically a paranormal Kill Bill. It's also influenced by stuff like Coraline and Crimson Peak (freaky mansions anybody?) and good music I've been listening to like Astrid S, HANA, and the new Lorde. It's mostly about killing an evil crystal goddess, but it's got plenty of snark, sexy bits, and themes of grief, strength, overcoming self-hate, et-cet...

I think this is one of my favorite covers I've ever made, and maybe one of my strongest pieces of writing yet?

I may be biased, but I really love this main character, Ruby. She's a darker hero with a lot of emotional baggage and anger, and she's a lot more in-your-face about it than my other characters. She's fairly dramatic, but then, her life has been pretty dramatic.

You can read the first chapter here.

Forget My Name At Midnight

(*Title from the lyrics to Night Mime by Melanie Martinez)

First of all, I need to point out how pretty and sleek this blog is now. It was pretty and sleek before, but the new blog templates are super simple and aesthetically pleasing. I've been meaning to make this space cleaner and more professional looking for a while, especially since I'm not interested in making a static author site - I find them boring and dated, and I suspect most other readers do, as well.

That said, this page itself has been pretty static lately. Part of that is just me being the reclusive hermit I really am at heart and moping in a depressive state. I recently turned twenty-one and I always get weird and introspective around my birthdays. (Which is to say most of my days this month have been spent in bed, staring at the wall and musing about mortality and the human soul. Total downer, right?)

Another part of it is that I've been on an outlining kick, writing treatments and summaries for a bunch of books, along with designing covers and trying to hash out when I'm working on which projects.

I just finished revamping Blood of Midnight and publishing it under my adult pen name, Cosmo Knox. The main difference is that it has a new cover and a new name on it, but the material of the book is unchanged, aside from a new author note explaining the concept of the series. Essentially I decided that Dru's story from Blood of Midnight was complete in and of itself, despite the open ending, and I didn't want to write a direct sequel. Instead, each book in the series will be a new take on the same characters and scenarios, in the vein of the Legend of Zelda series.

In book two, Dru and Lucia will be boys, named Dru and Lucien, Vincent will be a Magister instead of a prince, and the Evernight curse will take a different form. The paranormal element also changes from vampires to sphinxes, which I'm excited about, since I feel like it's a more interesting, original mythology than vamps - although I do love hot boys with fangs. :)

That's not to say it's the same story repeated again - several aspects of both the world and characters are tweaked, but the plot always plays out a different way, with characters filling different roles. I've even considered making Dru the villain in a few of them... Book two in particular is going to play into a lot of different tropes and stories than what I explored in Blood of Midnight.

Some will be high fantasy while others are urban fantasy and paranormal romance... I may even write a contemporary slasher iteration of the story. (Scream vibes, anyone?)

Which is to say, each book is a standalone, and they can be read together or alone, and in any order.

Right now I'm editing the four original Lilac Jones Adventures stories to be republished as Beacon, the first in a trilogy of short story collections.

I have a cover to share, which is really pretty, neon, and hazy, but I'm holding it hostage for a while since I'm not done editing the stories. That said it should be out sometime this week.

In case you're wondering, that does mean there will be some fairly glaring changes to the stories before I republish them.

First of all, I wrote the first few when I was eighteen, and I'm just a way better writer and editor now.

Second of all, I want to spruce the books up for clarity and mine them for deeper material; mostly just developing characters and relationships further and showcasing who Lilac is as a person, outside of her adventures as a beacon. Also, when I wrote them I wanted them to be fast, fun, light stories that were kind of juvenile, and while they're still whimsical and entertaining, I did want to make them slightly more mature and display more of Lilac's intelligence and capabilities for the books to come. (I'm calling them Shine & Hex as of now, but they may change.)

I'll be updating the Lilac Jones tab at the top of the blog soon, but until then the old versions of the series will be there. Once I update it the page name will change to Beacon to match the new publication!

Beacon will contain the previous four stories with new editing and a few brand new vignettes added between them, while all the material in Shine and Hex will be new and never before published, and is yet to be written. The main bulk of my editing is updating the previous stories to match my current voice the the jump between books isn't too glaring, although there will be a time jump of half a year between the end of Beacon and the start of Shine.

I do plan on releasing other books set in this series in the future, and I have three other short story/novella series in the works right now that I want to focus on this year.

I'll be blogging more in the days to come - both about Beacon & those other projects, plus some craft stuff, so stay tuned! :)

***

You can follow me on Twitter here, or buy my books here...thanks for reading!

Storm of Masks is Out!

Happy new year! I'm pretty psyched about the upcoming year. I have a lot of releases planned for 2017, and I can't even tell which project I'm most excited for. But I can say I'm super hyped that Storm of Masks is finally out.

When I decided to write more material for this book and release it, I had no idea how it would change the world/lore/characters, but revisiting it with a new eye and a general outline of where I wanted the sequel to go - SoM was originally written with it being a standalone in mind - I was able to see things with a new point of view and ended up writing a lot more new material than I'd expected.

That said, I'm not complaining. I can't wait to write book two, Riot of Souls. But first I'm working on the spin-off standalone, Inheritance of Corpses...

(yum, right?)

I'm drafting a light paranormal romance set in the Menagerie World, Downpour (the 3rd book in the Unbroken Anthology Series and the first full-length novel in the series, so far!) back to back with this, and they're the two funnest projects I've worked on in years!

Today I'll be buying cat food & litter and then coming home to work on finishing up the outlines on these and starting to draft Downpour, so nothing too exciting... I will be getting out a lot more this year, though, and posting a lot more on my Instagram

In lieu of something more interesting to talk about in this blog post I'll leave you all with this aesthetic board I made for Downpour!

Shadows of Ourselves Character Spotlight: Jackson

Time for another character spotlight! Shadows of Ourselves is out May 27th, and it should be available for pre-order within the next two days! I really love this book. Edits took it from 73,000 to 120,000, and it's a much stronger, more nuanced book now.

I cringe to know there are a select few people who read the rougher drafts. The final one is a lot better than I imagined the book could be. I'm glad I let it sit for a decent chunk of time, before editing.

Today's character spotlight is for Jackson - who gets a bit more screen time now than he did in the original book.

Jackson is a stranger who comes into the picture with a job offer for Sky, but there's a lot more to him than meets the eye. He's still a bit of a goofball, though.

You can add the book on Goodreads here and, if you review books in any capacity and you're interested in an ARC, you can email me at ApolloBlake@mail.com, and I'll send you one!

Thinking Your Way Back

Earlier I was reading old posts from January, which is only two months ago but feels eons ago. It was eons ago, because time is relative and time doesn't exist, but I'm not here to blow your mind or lose my thought process talking about weird time jumps. There are shitty B movies that can do that for you better than I ever could.

I'm here to talk about thinking my way back to when I felt, for a while, like things were really looking up. I wasn't in the greatest place, but the world still felt brimming with possibility.

And with my birthday coming up, I've been freaking out - you know, that old paralyzing anxiety about aging and death, right? And I had a bit of a breakdown for a month or so, there. I'm back now.

I'm not going to lie and say I'm fine when just the other night I was talking about mental illness and suicidal thoughts, but I feel like I worked some stuff out of my system and I'm in a slightly better place after a day of reflection and calmness.

I'm still stressed about nineteen million things, but I can't change any of it, I know I can't, so I have to stop blaming myself for things I have no power over and just take it as it comes, because that, how I react to it, is something I have power over. I'm gonna use that power.

So that's how I'm feeling today. I'm dealing with school stuff (stressful) because after easter I have to go and get my diploma. I was originally going to go for an adult diploma but I think I'm going for my GED or equivalency now, because I know if I go back to that school not only will I not learn anything I need to, but I'll also A) have a relapse with my mental illness and B) get into a fistfight with one of the various racist, sexist, and homophobic students there. I'm not even joking - I have an inability not to start a fight if I see a wrongdoing. But basically I just need to not go back into the Canadian public school system, ever.

I started outlining a new project the other night and I have a cover for it, it's gonna come out a few weeks before Shadows of Ourselves, I think. It's longer than a novella but probably not a novel. I think it should be around 35 thousand words, but I'd like to stretch it to 40k or so if I can. I know there's enough story there, but I refuse to add words unless they're needed for the story to function, so we'll see.

It has the best cover of any of my books, ever, in my opinion. Better than the cover for a (possible) sequel to Shadows of Ourselves, which nobody has seen yet. Better than the cover of Maelstrom, which no one has seen yet. I just love it. Not sharing yet, but I love it.

But the book has a Pinterest board, and you can find that here for some glimpses about it. You should also check out the boards for my other books, and I dunno, maybe follow me? For reasons. For science.

And, for fun, some facts about the book:

• It's inspired by magical girl animes.
• And some mythology I love but feel is underused.
• It's paranormal, and the main romance is a lesbian one.
• It's standalone for now but there's room to tell other stories in the world that would also stand on their own.
• MONSTERS.
• A private academy.
• Long lost family members.
• Biracial main character! (Kat is white and Japanese.)
• FANCY BALL GOWNS GALORE.
• Did I mention the monsters?
• Romance!
• Slightly odd romance - or just more realistic? I'm going for a kind of Rainbow Rowell angle on the romance, so while there's a bit of romance genre cheese, for the most part the romance develops in kind of lowkey, average, everyday ways.
• Dragonflies.
• Magic weapons.

So yeah. I'm excited. I'm taking a break from SOO editing to draft this over the next four days, then I edit Shadows in around a week or two, edit this, do my copy edits on Shadows, and then put them both out around the same time. Maybe a week apart?

I have no clue, nothing's official right now, but I'm excited.

FRENZY - Book + Cover Reveal!

So, I've been working on this project as a little aside for a while that I haven't been able to talk about, but it looks like I'm going to finish revisions and move onto copy edits within the next two days, and be able to publish the book within the next two weeks. So I can finally announce it.

And, because I'm just that cool, I'm going to reveal the cover at the same time, and give you all a bit of Souls of Salt & Seawater news!

So, the cover:

And a bit about the book:

If the word Gnome conjures up images of tiny bearded statues hanging around on front lawns, then think again. . .

Eighteen year-old Gnome Evelyn Torres isn't exactly having the day she planned. Sure, her skill and power as an earth elemental are at an all-time high. . .but her life is kind of a mess. Her online date turned out to be of the non-human variety. A man claiming to be the father she's never spoken to has suddenly reached out to her. Oh, and the icing on the sundae? A horde of Goblins has gone into a seriously nasty frenzy - and they're after her.

Monsters tossing debris overhead? Not exactly her idea of a great first date. Being in crush has never been this deadly. . .

Frenzy works both as a standalone novella and as a prequel to the upcoming Maelstrom in an action-packed first glimpse at the Menagerie world that will leave you pining for more. . .

So, yeah. It's set in the Menagerie world, the same universe as Maelstrom and Shadows. It's got cute romance. And family drama. And fashion. Oh, did I mention the horde of angry Goblins?

And, now, the question most of you are probably asking:

Where is SOSAS? Why is this coming out before that?

I announced Souls of Salt and Seawater this summer - before I'd actually started writing the book. I did that because there was a lot of hype surrounding it and a lot of people asking me to complete Alice's story, and I was so enamored with the potential it had that the book kept getting longer and longer, and it became more than just Alice's story - it became this worlds story.

Josmea is a world that I, as a writer, tend to play around in and explore for the next ten to fifteen years of my career. Souls of Salt and Seawater is just a small patch of a wider, richer tapestry I plan to weave - which is why I want to take my time with it and make it the best first impression of this world and these characters that I can.

That said, the book is coming soon. I'm still working on revisions right now, but I'd estimate I'll be done major revisions within the week and then move onto copy-editing. I don't even have a publishing date for Frenzy right now aside from soon, so I'll just say that SOSAS is coming soon after that.

I've announced and pushed back the books release twice now, so I've learnt my lesson about announcing dates before the minute I'm ready to hit publish. As soon as the book is ready, you will all know, because I will be shouting it from the rooftops and sending out free copies like there is no tomorrow.

As for actual pricing, both books will be initially available only on Amazon and Kobo, and they'll be $2.99 each in both marketplaces.

You can find Frenzy on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28600479-frenzy

Surprise!

I put out a new book today - and it's free! The new book is called Things We Saw At Midnight, and it's a collection of thirteen short horror stories and vignettes set in a fictional Nevada town called Midnight City. It's got griffins and doppelgängers, phantoms and visions. It's even got a personification of nostalgia.

In Midnight City, things are a bit odd. Old Lady Ellen knows when you're going to die, the man with a swarm of bees where his face should be always sits in the same booth at Winston's Pies, and the local gas station attendant is a leftover deity from another dimension. But in the dark heart of this desert city, fear lives like a sentient creature, waiting to claim anyone it can. Will you survive?

Things We Saw At Midnight is diverse, humorous, and hopefully pretty damn scary. I wrote this book as an early Halloween gift to all my readers and online friends, as a way to say thank you for embracing me and my work and encouraging me to keep creating.

you can grab an ebook on Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/584827
Or read it on Wattpad here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/51850761-things-we-saw-at-midnight
And, add it on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27181294-things-we-saw-at-midnight