It’s Tuesday, August 16, 2011, Wednesday, August 17, 2011, and here’s what’s on the shelves (my blog post follows right after):
The Urban Fantasy Anthology
Star-studded and comprehensive, this imaginative anthology brings a myriad of modern fantasy voices under one roof. Previously difficult for readers to discover in its new modes, urban fantasy is represented here in all three of its distinct styles—playful new mythologies, sexy paranormal romances, and gritty urban noir. Whether they feature tattooed demon-hunters, angst-ridden vampires, supernatural gumshoes, or pixelated pixies, these authors—including Patricia Briggs, Neil Gaiman, and Charles de Lint—mash-up traditional fare with pop culture, creating iconic characters, conflicted moralities, and complex settings. The result is starkly original fiction that has broad-based appeal and is immensely entertaining.
Bargains and Betrayals (13 to Life #3)
By Shannon Delany
Locked away at Pecan Place, Jessie finds her situation to be even more dangerous than she feared. While she struggles to maintain her sanity and discover answers about the group that seems less and less like any legitimate government agency, Pietr fights to keep their relationship alive. But very aware that his mother’s time is running out, Pietr makes a deal he doesn’t dare tell Jessie about. Because the deal Pietr’s made could mean the death of far more than his tenuous relationship with the girl he loves.
Second Grave on the Left
By Darynda Jones
Charley Davidson, Grim Reaper Extraordinaire, is back in this sexy, suspenseful novel of supernatural shenanigans.
When Charley is rudely awakened in the middle of the night by her best friend who tells her to get dressed quickly and tosses clothes out of the closet at her, she can’t help but wonder what Cookie’s up to. Leather scrunch boots with a floral miniskirt? Together? Seriously? Cookie explains that a friend of hers named Mimi disappeared five days earlier and that she just got a text from her setting up a meet at a coffee shop downtown. They show up at the coffee shop, but no Mimi. But Charley finds a message on the bathroom wall. Mimi left a clue, a woman’s name. Mimi’s husband explains that his wife had been acting strange since she found out an old friend of hers from high school had been found murdered a couple weeks prior. The same woman Mimi had named in her message.
Meanwhile, Reyes Alexander Farrow (otherwise known as the Son of Satan. Yes. Literally) has left his corporeal body and is haunting Charley. He’s left his body because he’s being tortured by demons who want to lure Charley closer. But Reyes can’t let that happen. Because if the demons get to Charley, they’ll have a portal to heaven. And if they have a portal to heaven…well, let’s just say it wouldn’t be pretty. Can Charley handle hot nights with Reyes and even hotter days tracking down a missing woman? Will Cookie ever get a true fashion sense? And is there enough coffee and chocolate in the world to fuel them as they do?
The Death Catchers
By Jennifer Anne Kogler
On her fourteenth Halloween, Lizzy Mortimer sees her first death-specter.
Confused at first, Lizzy soon learns from her grandmother Bizzy that as Death Catchers, they must prevent fate from taking its course when an unjust death is planned-a mission that has been passed down from their ancestor, Morgan le Fay. Only, Lizzy doesn’t expect one of her first cases to land her in the middle of a feud older than time between Morgan le Fay and her sister Vivienne le Mort. Vivienne hopes to hasten the end of the world by preventing Lizzy from saving King Arthur’s last descendant-humanity’s greatest hope for survival. It’s up to Lizzy, as Morgan’s earthly advocate, to outwit fate before it’s too late.
With its unique spin on Arthurian legend, this fresh, smartly written story will stand out in the paranormal genre.
The Best Tomes of the Dead
The Way of The Barefoot Zombie – Jasper Bark. Big business meets voodoo sorcery in this tale of economic greed and the undead. Can the world’s financial elite find their inner-zombie, or will they merely be food for ghouls?
Tide of Souls – Simon Bestwick. When earth experiences a catastrophic flood, humanity thinks the worst has happened. They are wrong, for from the water strides the undead, and they are hungry indeed. Can a small squad of soldiers fight for survival while trying to find the source of this supernatural apocalypse?
Hungry Hearts – Gary McMahon. The ultimate love triangle: a man, a dead woman and a serial killer. When the dead rise and turn a policeman’s world on its head he fights to save his wife, but she is murdered by a vicious killer. Now Rick Nutman goes on a quest for survival across a broken land, his undead wife in tow. Only to be followed by the man who originally murdered her.
Low Town
By Daniel Polansky
Drug dealers, hustlers, brothels, dirty politics, corrupt cops . . . and sorcery. Welcome to Low Town.
In the forgotten back alleys and flophouses that lie in the shadows of Rigus, the finest city of the Thirteen Lands, you will find Low Town. It is an ugly place, and its champion is an ugly man. Disgraced intelligence agent. Forgotten war hero. Independent drug dealer. After a fall from grace five years ago, a man known as the Warden leads a life of crime, addicted to cheap violence and expensive drugs. Every day is a constant hustle to find new customers and protect his turf from low-life competition like Tancred the Harelip and Ling Chi, the enigmatic crime lord of the heathens.
The Warden’s life of drugged iniquity is shaken by his discovery of a murdered child down a dead-end street . . . setting him on a collision course with the life he left behind. As a former agent with Black House—the secret police—he knows better than anyone that murder in Low Town is an everyday thing, the kind of crime that doesn’t get investigated. To protect his home, he will take part in a dangerous game of deception between underworld bosses and the psychotic head of Black House, but the truth is far darker than he imagines. In Low Town, no one can be trusted.
Kitty’s Greatest Hits
By Carrie Vaughn
The first-ever story collection from the New York Times bestselling author, including two all-new works!
Kitty Norville, star of a New York Times bestselling series, is everybody’s favorite werewolf DJ and out-of-the-closet supernatural creature. Over the course of eight books she’s fought evil vampires, were-creatures, and some serious black magic. She’s done it all with a sharp wit and the help of a memorable cast of werewolf hunters, psychics, and if-notgood- then-neutral vampires by her side. Kitty’s Greatest Hits not only gives readers some of Kitty’s further adventures, it offers longtime fans a window into the origins of some of their favorite characters.
In “Conquistador de la Noche,” we learn the origin story of Denver’s Master vampire, Rick; with “Wild Ride,” we find out how Kitty’s friend T.J. became a werewolf; and in “Life is the Teacher,” we revisit Emma, the human-turned-unwilling-vampire who serves the aloof vampire Master of Washington, D.C.
This entertaining collection includes two brand-new works: “You’re On the Air,” about one of Kitty’s callers after he hangs up the phone; and the eagerly awaited “Long Time Waiting,” the novella that finally reveals just what happened to Cormac in prison, something every Kitty fan wants to know.
The Edinburgh Dead
By Brian Ruckley
Edinburgh: 1828
In the starkly-lit operating theaters of the city, grisly experiments are being carried out on corpses in the name of medical science. But elsewhere, there are those experimenting with more sinister forces.
Amongst the crowded, sprawling tenements of the labyrinthine Old Town, a body is found, its neck torn to pieces. Charged with investigating the murder is Adam Quire, Officer of the newly- formed Edinburgh Police. The trail will lead him into the deepest reaches of the city’s criminal underclass, and to the highest echelons of the filthy rich.
Soon Quire will discover that a darkness is crawling through this city of enlightenment – and no one is safe from its corruption.
The Edinburgh Dead is a powerful fusion of gothic horror, history, and the fantastical.
~
Whew. That’s alotta books. And I’m sure there’s plenty that I missed. Congrats to all authors on their book birthdays! **throws confetti**
So, yeah, I was going to post yesterday and completely ran out of time. Sorry about that.
This is actually the topic that I wanted to talk about on my post today — which, by the way, is almost tomorrow. And is tomorrow if you’re in Dame Keri’s or Dame Kaz’s neck of the woods. Sorry about that too. The being late part, not the neck of the woods part. I wished I lived near Keri or Kaz!!!
What I want to talk about is time. Or, more specifically, the lack thereof.
Like many writers, writing isn’t my full-time job, nor is it my only job. That’s not to say I’m a part-time novelist; God knows I spend far too much time every day either writing or plotting. I used to also do promotion, but lately I’ve cut back. Not that I need to scale back promotion — I really should do a lot more — but I’ve just run out of time.
Want to know why? I’ve decided that at 40, I really should be living my life more.
For years — since 2005, when I stopped querying for the Great American Novel, wrote Failed Book Number 2, and wrote/queried/sold Hell’s Belles — I’ve been eating, sleeping and breathing writing. If I wasn’t writing, revising, selling, copy editing, proofing or promoting a book or other story, I was planning a different writing project. Sure, I squeezed in my full-time day job, my family, and my friends. And I made it work. But the thing is, life shouldn’t have to be squeezed around writing — at least, not all the time. At least, not for me.
So come this January, I was overweight, out of shape, exhausted, short-tempered (and just plain short, but that ain’t changing!) Yes, I’d been doing tae kwon do for a year, but that was more a fun/family activity/social activity/can I really do it thing than an I’m Getting In Shape thing. I was also swinging in and out of depression. I was having a hell of a time writing LOSS — it kept fighting me — and I wasn’t sleeping well at all. I was a mess. When I wasn’t working on LOSS, I was worried about sales. When I wasn’t worried about sales, I was worried about LOSS. And, of course, I was still doing everything that needed to be done in other parts of my life: the day job, the family, the various commitments.
It really hit me that I’d been burning the candle at both ends. Everything was about writing, or squeezing in everything that wasn’t writing that I still had to do. And I had lost the joy of it, you know? When writing is everything, all the time, nothing is fun — especially the writing. And worse: I’d really fallen out of sync with life. I hated how I was feeling, how I was looking, how I was so unhappy. Because there really is more to life than writing (all the time). I realized there just wasn’t enough time in the day for me to do everything that I wanted — no, that I capital-n Needed to do.
So you know what? I decided to prioritize.
Writing was still up there — the LOSS deadline was approaching, and I had other projects to kick around. But it was no longer the all-consuming top thing. Along with writing, I decided to focus on my health. At the time, I equated that with losing weight.
Loving Husband and I decided to get healthy together (my God, I love him so much), so we started really working on portion control and gradually introducing healthier foods into our diet. By February, I started doing some cardio. By April, I was hitting the gym 4 -5 times a week. By May, I added strength training/weights. I began reading more about the difference between losing weight and losing fat, and then researching different philosophies of nutrition. This month, I started doing the Insanity workout just to see if I could. (So far, I can, as long as I modify it — tricky back and funky knee, or, in other words, I’m 4o.) I think I found an eating style/food philosophy/lifestyle that works well for me — I’ll know for sure in a few weeks. I’ve started sleeping through the night. I’m feeling much better, and looking much better. 
I have muscles now! Okay, I always did, but it’s getting easier to see them without squinting!
And this is all because I decided that I had to make the time to focus on my health. Which meant scaling back on other things.
See, that’s key: I had to stop thinking that I had to do it ALL. And I had to stop worrying about things I can’t control. I’ve decided that I’m striving for bliss. There’s a balance between day job and writing and family and life. And I’m slowly finding it. It’s more than staying up until OMG o’clock far too often to write. It’s more than being so pressed for time that I’m checking my emails when I’m at a red light.
It’s about making time for what matters.
And you know what? My health matters.
So I’ve been going to bed earlier. I’ve been exercising more. I’ve been eating healthier. And I’ve given myself permission to take my time with things that don’t have hard-and-fast deadlines. Sure, there are plenty of times when I really have to focus, focus, focus. Right now, my day job is extremely demanding, so my writing (and all writing-related activities, like blog posts) has taken a back seat. And that’s OK. Soon enough, the writing will be front and center.
But it doesn’t always have to be.
You know what I did this weekend? Among other things, I challenged my 10 year old to a footrace. (He left me far behind, but he cheered me on when I finally made it to the end.) I went bike riding for the first time with Loving Husband and the Tax Deductions — together, as a family. I took the kids to their piano lesson, and later I suffered through The Smurfs because the Tax Deductions really wanted to see it. I broke the clothes drier and didn’t freak about it. (Three days later, it’s all fixed.) And today, I received my high-blue belt in tae kwon do, along with Loving Husband and Tax Deduction the Younger. As for Tax Deduction the Elder, he received his purple belt.
Rah, us!
Yes, I have to finish reviewing LOSS copy edits. Yes, I have to set aside the first 75 pages of the all-new sooper sekrit project because they weren’t right and start the whole thing over. Yes, I have to start writing BREATH. Yes. Yes. And yes.
But you know what I don’t have to do?
I don’t have to worry about all of those things. I’m going to do them. I’m going to hit the deadlines I must hit, and cut myself slack when there’s slack to cut.
This is me, newly focused on being healthy — and that includes my frame of mind.
And now, please excuse me: Loving Husband and I have a date to watch Cheers reruns.