Speaking of, she’s here today to give you her advice on how to visit your local Renaissance Fair. (Not that I’ve ever held a season pass to one of these events. Just that one time. Ahem.)

What to Wear to a Renaissance Fair

So. You’ve finally decided to attend a Renaissance fair.

Good for you. Even though one of the characters in Love is a Battlefield refers to her local Renaissance fair as “a pulsing orgy of shafts and breasts,” I’ve always been a proponent of any event that allows grown up, educated people to wear costumes and guzzle ale by the full light of day.

Now, I know it can be a little intimidating to be a spectator at one of these events. They are usually run by such a tight-knit group of improv actors and history aficionados that bursting onto the scene with your $10 ticket and no idea where to start can be a barrier to you having a good time.

Don’t be scared.

Hand your ticket to the wench at the gates, head over to the ale and pickle house (this is a real thing), and relax. You’ll know where you fit once you take a survey of the clothing and compare it with your own attire for the day.

Costume #1: The Performers

The actors and actresses who run the fair are your hosts for the day. They almost never drop out of character and go by names like Sir Baldrick Goodfellow and Amanda Plunder. You’ll know them from their plumed headdresses, heavy velvet fabrics (even on a hundred degree day), and, if your Renaissance Fair is as awesome as my town’s is, the lone grey wizard who walks around welcoming the hobbits.

Costume #2: The Hangers-On

My favorite part of the Renaissance fair, these are the people who aren’t part of the production but are always prepared to bring their own party. Don’t be surprised to find handcrafted chain mail from head to toe, Halloween pirate-whore costumes, and a surprising abundance of robes. (It seems lots of people are hiding hooded mage robes in their closets. Who knew?)

Costume #3: The Contextually Appropriate T-Shirts

I suspect these people are a regular part of a Renaissance fair but, for personal reasons, have chosen to opt out of that particular day’s events. My favorites include My Other Shirt has Puffy Sleeves and I Drink Dragon Tears. I want both these shirts. A lot.

Costume #4: The Bystanders

This is where I can be found. As much as I love the ambiance of the Renaissance fair, I’m an introverted writer given more to people-watching than participation. Since our fair is always in August, when the sun is doing its best to end me, I’m the one in shorts and a tank top, sweating over my notebook. Wave to me or buy me a pickle. I’m nice.

Costume #5: The Noobs

You can always spot the first-timers at a Renaissance Fair. I’m not saying they all have fanny packs and cameras, but, well, they all have fanny packs and cameras—and they’re usually the ones stepping up to try and throw an axe at a tree stump. (Hint: This is a lot harder than it looks.) Don’t give in to the urge to mock these people. They’ve been transported to a new and magical world where peacocks and belly dancers mill about in equal abundance, and it’s going to take some time for them to get used to it here.

You know what? Wave to them and buy them a pickle, too. We’re all family here.

About Tamara Morgan

Tamara Morgan is a romance writer and unabashed lover of historical reenactments—the more elaborate and geeky the costume requirements, the better. In her quest for modern-day history and intrigue, she has taken fencing classes, forced her child into Highland dancing, and, of course, journeyed annually to the local Renaissance Fair. These feats are matched by a universal love of men in tights, of both the superhero and codpiece variety.

You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.

Would you like to enter to win an eARC of Tamara’s battle-of-the-sexes debut?  Leave a comment below and tell us which costume category you’d fall into if you visited a Renaissance Fair.  (Me? I was always a #2. The best part of any group trip to the local Ren Fair was stopping at McDonalds in chain mail & corsets on the way home.)

This book is just…sweet.  Sweet and fun and funny, but not in a slap-stick trying-too-hard sort of way, just in a natural wit and banter between two wary adults who don’t want to be attracted but can’t help the sparks.  And so Donna & I are going to give away 5 copies to 5 lucky winners so they can enjoy the delightful haunted antics of this poor love-cursed witch and her many ghostly ex-boyfriends.

The Whats & Whys

This week celebrates the first full novel release in the Children of the Undying series.  Hammer Down involves the meeting of two strong people–a mercenary heroine who leads her own trucker crew, and a half-demon hero who leads an outcast settlement.

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Instead of holding a boring contest on our blog, we decided it was time for another knock-down bare-fisted brawl.  You get to choose the side you’d rather belong to and tell everyone who disagrees with you how very wrong they are.  (And they are wrong.  They are so wrong, they won’t even know how wrong until you tell them! Which you must. Often!)

And the grand prizes for this epic brawl pitting  friend against friend?

That’s right!  We’ll be picking one lucky warrior from each team to win their choice of a kindle touch, a nook simple touch or a kobo touch.  So how do you get in on this brawl?

The Hows

Step One: Bloggers/Authors/Journalers Only

Declare your side! At the end of this post, you’ll find information about each team along with graphics and disclaimer text to create your own fighting post.  You don’t have to have read the books to participate–all you have to do is pick a side!

Important: Once you’ve made your post, come back here and leave a comment with a link. That’s important for step two! Because we’re going to be sending a lot of people your way.

Step Two: Everyone

FIGHT! As posts are made declaring for one team or the other, I’ll be updating the master list of battlegrounds on this post.  You enter to win by commenting on those posts–not by commenting here.  Go to the people supporting your team and tell them how right they are.  Go to the people supporting the opposite team and point out the obvious flaws in their logic.  (Make up reasons. There’s no fact checking in war!)

Every comment on one of our participating bloggers’ posts will count as one entry.  At the end of January, I’ll add up the number of comments on each post and use that to randomly draw one winning comment from each team.  The person who left the comment wins their choice of the ereader prizes, and the blogger who posted the winning comment gets a $50 gift certificate to Amazon or Barnes & Noble as a reward for hosting a good fight.

Participating Blogs

Visit any (or all!) of the blogs below and leave a comment! Each blog you visit & comment on gives you another entry for the kindle, and you’ll get to explore a little more of the blogging community while you’re at it!

Team Trucker

1. Book Recommendations
2. Fiction Vixen
3. Wicked Little Pixie
4. The Book Binge
5. ParanormalCityGirl
6. My World
7. Dark Haven Book Reviews
8. Sadie Hart
9. RhiReading
10. …join the fight!

Team Outcast

1. The Book Pushers
2. Book Lovers Inc
3. Novel Thoughts
4. Reading the Paranormal
5. Smexybooks
6. Paranormal Haven
7. Under the Covers
8. A Hidden Haven
9. My Odd Little World
10. The Wormhole
11. Firestar Books
12. …join the fight!

More About the Teams

Need more information before you pick a side?  How about a little idea of who you’ll be siding with.

Devi: Devi is third-generation trucker and a human citizen in good standing. Human leaders pay her well to brave demon attacks while hauling goods between cities. Outcasts pay her even more to accept off-books trade missions. She’s loyal to her people, but fully capable of throwing you to the demons if you threaten those she cares about.

Juliet: Don’t even bother, macho men of the world. Her guns are bigger than yours, and she can use them. Juliet’s never come across a firearm she couldn’t master, and she’s seen her share. As Devi’s resident weapons expert, she’s at the front of any battle–and is usually the one to end it. Okay, maybe she has a secret in her past…but what mercenary doesn’t have secrets?

Tanner: Speaking of secrets… Tanner is the original man of mystery. He came from a mysterious training outpost in the southwest. He sometimes speaks Spanish. He could kill you with dental floss, if you have enough credits to find some dental floss after the apocalypse. Ladies, he’s a flirt. Feel free to ask him his sign–just don’t ask why he’s inhumanly fast.

Cache: One bad run-in with a demon can ruin your whole day. Cache lost her access to the human world when she was declared demon-tainted and lost her hearing when a back-alley doctor botched her network chip replacement, but she hasn’t let either setback stop her. If you get on her bad side she might just hack your brain. She can do that, you know.

Shane: Shane might not be able to hack your brain, but he could build you a new one out of wires and circuit boards. If it runs on electricity, Shane can build it, fix it or enhance. The city offered him a posh job, but a serious case of claustrophobia drove him to choose open-if-demon-infested freedom of the road over a life underground.

Zel: With a mother strong-willed enough to escape a demon’s clutches and a step-father capable enough to hold together an outcast enclave, Zel was raised to leadership. It’s too bad his demon nature is more suited to savagery than statesmanship. He’ll lead his people because it’s his duty, but he’d rather be punching someone in the face. Repeatedly.

Hailey: Hailey’s mother could summon demons. Her father was demon-spawn. She’s one of the first generation of hybrids, humans with strong demon and summoner blood mixing in their veins to create magical ability. Or, in her case, psychic ability. Hailey knows if you’ve been bad or good, and will make you regret it if you try to lie to her.

Lorenzo: Some halfblood demons are fighters. Some are lovers. Then there’s Lorenzo. Technically he’s only half-incubus, but that hasn’t stopped him from being 100% irresistible to women and men alike. He’s also the iron fist that will crush any halfblood caught using magic to cross the line between seduction and coercion.

Trip: Being mostly human doesn’t make you powerless–not when you’re a world class hacker in a network-dependent world. Whether it’s security, communication or entertainment, he’s the final word on computing in virtual reality among the outcasts. If you’re really nice to him, he might share his stash of pre-apocalypse music and movies, too.

Jai: Most halfblood outcasts were born to human women who escaped demons. Jai’s halfblood mother worshiped them as gods. There are probably more comfortable places to grow up than a demon hunting camp–Sparta and Hell being among them–but Jai has done his best to adjust to a life with human rules, even if he’s more demon than man.

Headers & Disclaimers for Bloggers

Here’s everything you need to make your own post.  Feel free to copy any images, covers or biographies that you want to use to make your point!  Your post should contain one of the header images, the disclaimer text (including the link back to this post, please, so they have access to the rules!), and any arguments you’d like to make about why you’d choose to be on Team Outcast or Team Trucker.

This post is part of Moira Rogers’s Post-Apocalyptic Trucker vs Outcast Showdown. A comment on this post will enter you to win your choice of a NOOK Simple Touch, or a Kindle Touch or Kobo Touch with special offers. For rules, details on more ways to enter or information on how to pick your own side, visit the contest page at Moira Rogers’s website.

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Rules & Disclaimers

1) Replying to this post does NOT constitute an entry. Comments on participating blogs are the only comments that will be considered. 2) Contest ends January 31st, 2012. 3) No purchase necessary to enter, void where prohibited, odds of winning dependent on number of entries. 5) Winners will be drawn between February 1st and February 14th, and prizes will be awarded in the form of gift-certificates to applicable outlets. No substitutions.

Be warned, gentle readers. This book is naughty!  Don’t believe me?

OCEAN’S TOUCH BY DENISE TOWNSEND

A lonely widow and a handsome artist have a chance for happiness…with the help of a sexy selkie, that is.

After the death of Meredith’s husband many years before, she allowed his legacy to take over her life. A shell of a woman, she finds little joy in her day-to-day tasks. Drawn to her pain, the empathic selkie Dylan knows she’s ready to live and love again, and he knows that he’s just the man for the job.

As Dylan draws Meredith out of her shell, he realizes that to truly free her, he needs to help her accept her budding love for Alexander, an artist who challenges Meredith on every level: intellectually, emotionally and sexually. To achieve a true happy ending, Dylan must help his chosen humans break down their emotional barriers in order to grab the happiness they so deserve.

WARNING: This book features a lonely widow, a hot artist waiting in the wings, and the sexy selkie who brings them together…in every possible way.

Since I’m leaving on a holiday-family-adventure road trip on Saturday morning, this will be a quick contest. Leave a comment on this post by 5 PM CST on Friday, December 23rd, and you’ll be entered to win! Easy peasy! If you want more opportunities for the winningz, you can catch up with Ms. Townsend on Twitter or Facebook, too. Ocean’s Touch is releasing from Samhain Publishing next Tuesday.

I’ll pick a winner before I head off into the uncertain internet of holiday vacation. I’m headed to the beach to meet family flying in from Maine and Minnesota.  Tell us in the comments if you’ve got anything special planned, or if you’re going to stay at home and read books. (I am so jealous of you already.)

This post was originally posted at Eliza Gayle’s Demon & Magic Mixer. I’ve reposted it here because I have received a few questions about the Children of the Undying series, and I think this sums up the content in the books fairly well.

As a writer, sometimes you have an idea and you know what it’s going to be. A paranormal romance. An urban fantasy. A romantic suspense. A mystery.

Donna and I almost never know what our books are going to be.

Our Southern Arcana series straddles the line between Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy. Our Bloodhounds series mixes Weird West Alternate History with borderline Erotic Paranormal Romance and just a hint of Steampunk. And our new series, Children of the Undying…

#1) Spicy Romance

The intro novella, Demon Bait, and the first novel, Hammer Down, both contain no holds barred loving between halfblood demons and women brave enough to take them on.

#2) The Apocalypse

#3) Demons & Magic

#4) Virtual Reality

#5) Truckers

So there you have it!

Spicy paranormal romance with a demon apocalypse, a side of virtual reality, and some badass truckers. What genre should we call it? We’re not entirely sure either. What we do know is that it was a ton of fun to write, and we can’t wait to share it with the world.

# # #

We’re going to be running some fun contests to celebrate the release of Hammer Down during the first week in January.  There will be ereader giveaways galore, ebook prizes falling from the rafters and lots of general chaos.

But I’m going to put up a couple ARCs of Hammer Down today!  If you’d like to read the book early, leave a comment and let me know which aspect of the series you find most interesting! Winners will be chosen at the end of the week.

EDIT: Sorry, to be clear, this is a digital ARC. I try to remember to disclaim that every time, but sometimes I forget!

Some time later I ended up getting to know Thea on twitter, which is one of the many reasons I love twitter. I get to meet cool people (see: Holly & Thea). As it happened, Thea had recently contracted a novella with Samhain and graciously sent me an advance copy so that I could enjoy my favorite thing ever: novellas with hot shapeshifter wolves in them.  <3

True Colors is an amazingly fun story, and it comes out tomorrow from Samhain Publishing!  In honor of that, I sweet-talked Thea into letting me post an excerpt.  And in honor of how much I enjoyed the novella, I’ll buy a copy for someone tomorrow on release day!  (Nook, Kindle or ARe gifting.)

Meeting your soulmate? Great. Preventing your possible murder? Even better.

Alice Clark, a Wyr and schoolteacher, has had two friends murdered in as many days, and she’s just found the body of a third. She arrives at the scene only minutes before Gideon Riehl, a wolf Wyr and current detective in the Wyr Division of Violent Crime—and, as Alice oh-so-inconveniently recognizes at first sight, her mate.

But the sudden connection Riehl and Alice feel is complicated when the murders are linked to a serial killer who last struck seven years ago, killing seven people in seven days. They have just one night before the killer strikes again. And every sign points to Alice as the next victim.

Warning: This book contains a hot police detective, a violent murderer on the hunt, and a heroine that can blend in anywhere…

Enjoy this Excerpt from TRUE COLORS!

Chapter One

Death

Don’t move. Stay perfectly still.

The enormous monster plunged through the apartment with the lethal speed of a stealth bomber. A Molotov cocktail of pheromones and Power spewed through the blood-tainted air, the classic signs of a strong male Wyr in a rage. Alice clung to her perch, her heart knocking so hard she thought it was going to burst out of her chest. Had the murderer returned?

Then the monster slowed. Alice heard him utter vicious curses under his breath as he came upon Haley’s still-warm body. Alice took the New York subway daily to work, and thought she had heard it all, but she learned a few things as she listened to him. Did he curse because he saw the murdered woman for the first time, or because he realized he had made some kind of mistake?

Alice had only just arrived at Haley’s apartment herself. She had found the door open and rushed inside to discover that her friend’s body had been laid out on her bed. Haley’s torso had been cut open, organs lying across the flowered bedspread like a child’s abandoned toys.

Alice had gone numb at the sight, the normal cool, gentle logic of her mind seizing in shock. Then she had heard someone running up the stairs. She had barely gotten to her hiding place before the monster appeared. If he was the murderer and he had returned to clean up some clue he had left behind, neither Alice nor the police would know what it was now.

He prowled through Haley’s home in complete silence. Alice couldn’t even hear the soft pad of footsteps. Her awareness of him was excruciating, as though someone had stroked the flat of a razor blade along her bare skin with the smiling promise of a cut. His presence was a violation of Haley’s private space. He paused not two feet away from Alice, so close she could see the pocket of his worn leather jacket out of the corner of her eye and hear the almost imperceptible sound of his steady breathing.

She wanted to scream and strike at him. She wanted to run away and dial 9-1-1. The shadowed apartment hallway was a million miles long, the open front door too far away for her to make a run for it and hope she wouldn’t be noticed. She didn’t dare move, did not dare even shift her gaze for fear a glancing light might reflect off her eyes and give her position away. She hardly dared to breathe. The only thing she could do was taste the air and know that, if nothing else, she could recognize this man again by his scent. Underneath the scent of violence, he smelled warm and clean. If they were in any other kind of situation, she would have found his scent sexy. She fought the sudden urge to vomit.

Wait. If she could scent him, then what kind of trail had she left behind? Could he scent her as well? Would he be able to recognize her again, too? Oh gods.

Riehl struggled with his rage and got it under control. His body settled out of the partial shapeshift. He couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him. He kept one hand close to his holstered SIG P226, and an invisible six-pack of whoop-ass ready in the other.

already soaked through the floor to the apartment below. Someone was going to have a bitch of a time cleaning that out.

Goddammit, the body was still warm. Her keys and half-opened purse were on the floor, and the ruins of a business outfit pillowed her mutilated body. It looked like the killer had surprised her as she arrived home from work. There was no sign of forced entry, which meant she had thought she had reason to trust him. Had the killer posed as a utility or maintenance worker, or was he an acquaintance?

If Riehl didn’t find anybody else to open the whoop-ass on, he could always save it for himself. If he had made the connections a little faster, if he had heard back from the Jacksonville PD a little sooner, if he had run the internet database searches right away instead of jawing over ideas with his new boss, Wyr sentinel and gryphon Bayne, this pretty lady might still be alive.

Goddammit, this was partly his fault.

He needed to call HQ, but… Riehl did a slow swivel, his sharp eyes noting every detail of the place. The vic’s home was a tiny, postage stamp-sized one-bedroom on the top floor of a four-story walk-up. It was furnished with space-saving IKEA décor. To Riehl, the vic had kept the apartment so warm it felt stifling. A flat screen TV was mounted on one wall. Every small-apartment dweller in New York must have cheered when that innovation came out. There were plants and books and shit, such as a tangle of female frippery on a bedroom dresser. He nudged closets open and they were full of normal stuff—clothes, shoes, coats and a few umbrellas, and small boxes. A Thursday paper was folded on a Barbie doll-sized dinette table, alongside an open box of holiday decorations with an elegant feathered and sequined half-mask perched on top.

Christians had Christmas, Jews had Hanukkah, and the universal African holiday celebration was Kwanzaa. For the Elder Races, winter solstice was the time to celebrate the seven Primal Powers in the Masque of the Gods. The vic had been in the middle of decorating her home for next week’s Festival of the Masque. Maybe she had planned on attending one of the many balls that were held throughout the city. The mask was a nice one, the kind one wore and passed down to one’s kids. It had set someone back a paycheck or two. Maybe she had looked at it with happy memories and anticipation.

All in all, the apartment was pretty typical for the city, and a perfectly charming place for a petite, 135-pound single female like the vic. Riehl stood six-foot-five and topped 263. He had only recently decided to domesticate himself from ninety-six roaming years spent as a captain in the Wyr lord Dragos Cuelebre’s army. He was used to a rugged lifestyle and spending a lot of time outdoors, often in inclement weather. To him the small overheated place felt claustrophobic.

There was no doubt in his mind the killing itself was the reason for the invasion. Her jewelry still lay scattered on the dresser and the corner of a wallet was visible in her open purse. It looked like nothing had been taken, unless the killer had snipped off a little something from one of the organs to keep as a souvenir, which would have to be determined by an autopsy.

He just couldn’t shake the sense of someone else being present. He was looking for some kind of fricking giveaway. Someone’s eye peering out from behind a closet door, or a webcam stuffed in a cute pink bunny. He even scoped the snow-covered scene outside the window to see if someone was watching from another building.

As he searched he took in deep, even, deliberate breaths. The heavy copper scent of blood pervaded everything. It all but buried the vic’s normal scent. There were other odors that he classified as normal and dismissed, like the faint lingering scent of fried fish and some floral stink that came from a bowl of potpourri. If Riehl had been in his Wyr form, his wolf would have had a sneezing fit at the potpourri and looked for the fish to roll in.

He noted two other very interesting things. He could taste faintly at the back of his throat a chemical tinge that hung in the air around the vic, along with the smell of rubber. He would bet his next week’s paycheck that the killer had worn rubber gloves, and that the chemical taint was KO Odorless Odor Eliminator, handy tool of deer hunters and Wyr criminals everywhere.

He would have expected the gloves, but using the KO meant the killer was either Wyr himself or at least he was familiar with Wyr investigative capabilities. The killer was organized, knew how to hide his scent, and planned ahead. That all fit with the deliberate care with which he had set out the victim’s organs, which was an exact match with the Jacksonville slaughter from seven years ago.

The second, very interesting thing Riehl noticed was another scent in the apartment. It was a light, delicate, feminine scent that tantalized his senses. Haunting and delectable, it hinted at an unforeseen, mysterious reality he wanted to dive into headfirst, except that the scent had turned jagged with stress pheromones that set his teeth on edge and had his hand inching closer to his weapon. The scent hadn’t had time to sink very deeply into the surroundings and was already fading.

The body was still warm, and a woman had been in the apartment before him. Well, how about that.

If the stubborn prickle at the back of Riehl’s neck was anything to go by, the woman might even still be around, although if she was, he didn’t have the first clue where she could be hiding.

He came to a sudden decision and strode out of the apartment.

* * *

This contest is going to be a quick one! Leave a comment telling me why you want to read True Colors by midnight tonight, and tomorrow I’ll randomly choose one commenter to win a copy!  If you don’t want to take your chances, you can pre-order True Colors for 30% off at Samhain! $2.85 is a heck of a deal.

Woohoo! Final winners are below. I had a lot to pick, so it took me a few days to round up all the entries and get a winner.  Winners will be contacted over the next few days.  Congrats to all of the winners, and thanks to all of the authors who donated prizes and time.

All winners picked via the lovely Pick Giveaway Winner plugin. 

Winners of a $10 gift certificate to Amazon!

Winner for “Apocalyptathon: Keith Melton Walks With the Dead”:
Pamk

Winner for “Apocalyptathon: Susi Sunshine Talks Shaun of the Dead”:
Ilona

Winner for “Apocalyptathon: Emily from What Book Is That”:
The Book Vixen

WINNERS OF DONATED APOCALYPTIC BOOKS

Winner for “Apocalyptathon: Devil’s Kiss by Zoë Archer”:
Sara M

Winner for “Apocalyptathon: The Twisted Kiss by Anya Bast”:
Christie I

Winner for “Apocalyptathon: Reawakening Eden by Vivi Andrews”:
Rhianna

Winner for “Apocalyptathon: Dragon’s Kiss by Ally Blue”:
Susan

Winner for “Apocalyptathon: Desert Blade by Ella Drake”:
Brenda Hyde

Winner for “Apocalyptathon: The Last Night by Nico Rosso”:
Tamsyn

Winner of an ARC of Hammer Down by Moira Rogers:
Emma Pearlman

Winners for “Apocalyptathon: Demon Bait by Moira Rogers”:
1) Mary Jo
2) Asheleigh W
3) Joanne B.
4) Sherry
5) JessS
6) Louise
7) Bec
8.) Denise D/LolaLovesBooks
9) LIONA
10) Joder

GRAND PRIZE WINNER OF A KINDLE FIRE

Nancy Gilliland for winning comment:
http://moirarogers.com/blog/archives/4460/comment-page-1#comment-156743

Whew!

Thus ends our first round of post-apocalyptic craziness!  We’ll be back soon enough though, because Hammer Down is out in four weeks!  In fact, if you haven’t gotten a chance to get your hands on either book, they’re both 30% off at Samhain Publishing for today:  http://store.samhainpublishing.com/children-undying-series-298.html

Thanks everyone for helping us celebrate our love of all things apocalyptic. 

We’ve been lucky enough to get some positive reviews!  I have a by-no-means exhaustive list of those I happen to have links to on my laptop, too: Badass Book Reviews | Book Lovers Inc | From Me to You | LibraryJournal | Long and Short Reviews | Reading the Paranormal | Smexybooks | The Book Pushers | Under the Covers | Wayfaring Writer | What Book is That

So thanks, everyone who picked up a copy of Demon Bait and thanks to everyone who read it and talked to us and hugged us and tweeted about it or was just, in general, pretty damn rad.  Donna & I sometimes fall down on the whole HEY, BUY OUR BOOK part of promotion, but for some reason you wacky people keep doing it anyway.  I am eternally grateful. <3

And now it’s only four weeks to Hammer Down!  Which is like Demon Bait except 3x as long and with 3x as much violence and 3x as much sex and 3x as many demons and the answer to why the series is called “Children of the Undying.”  (I can’t tell you. It’s a spoiler. Ha!)

 

I’ll be doing a little blog clean up today and posting the final winners of the Apocalypathon contest over the weekend.  Thanks everyone who participated…it was so much fun!

Welcome to the LAST DAY of Apocalyptathon! I hope it was as fun for you as it was for me.  For our last day celebration I’m bringing you one more sneak peek into the future of apocalyptic romance courtesy of the delightfully witty Nico Rosso.  His book, The Last Night, will be hitting the world next year thanks to Carina Press.

Describe your book in one or two sentences, preferably ones that would sound good read by Mr. Moviefone.

Surviving the earthquakes was one thing, human hungry mutants is another, but can Erica live through seeing Jake ride in from the wasteland on his motorcycle?

Your book broke (or at least greatly endangered) your characters’ future. Are you a vengeful god, or did you do it for their own good?

Vengeful. It was damn fun burning it all to the ground.

The zombies are coming. Be honest. Are you a survivor, or zombie bait? Be sure to tell us why.

Survivor. I’m kind of looking forward for an excuse to use my “emergency” hatchet and not worry about the deposit on our apartment.

The Day After Tomorrow is here…what three books would you pick to save, if they were the only books you’d have to read for the rest of your life?

1) The I Ching. Every time you read a section, it can be interpreted differently depending on your current situation.
2) Shakespeare’s sonnets. Concentrated content like that can last for years.
3) US Army Survival Manual. Makes good reading now, even better after all hell’s broken loose.

Which type of apocalypse do you think you’re most prepared to survive?

Biological and paranormal apocalypses seem like a roll of the dice. Do you have the right gene, are you the chosen one? Can’t really plan for that, so I think I’d do best in a natural apocalypse.

Since it’s still a few months until release, have this unofficial blurb for a taste of things to come…

Erica lived through the chained earthquakes that ravaged our world, but she and the other humans face a new threat: stone-skinned mutants who want to burn the remains of society down, and her along with it. In the distance, she sees hope in a constant rain cloud, but has no way of getting there.

Until Jake rides into her life on a motorcycle. He has the secret to fighting the mutants, but is a scavenger who insists on a trade for the information. Will his price be too high? And can the attraction between Jake and Erica survive the inferno of the Burning Earth?

Since it’s too early to give away a copy of his post-apocalyptic title, Nico has been kind enough to offer the winner their choice of one of his ebook backlist titles. To enter, leave a comment telling us what intrigued you about the interview or blurb, or tell us which of these freaking awesome covers is your favorite.

(Speculative fiction gets the best cover art, I swear.)

And don’t forget that this is your last chance to enter all the previous contests. Click on http://moirarogers.com/blog/archives/tag/apocalyptathon-2011 to find them!

It’s here! Hooray! Forgive our brief interruption as we celebrate the release day of Demon Bait, the novella introduction to our new post-apocalyptic paranormal romance series.

Demon Bait – Children of the Undying #1
Buy at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Samhain Publishing

Fifty years after a demon apocalypse devastated the world, summoners still bear the bulk of the blame. Marci lives in secret, hiding the gifts that could cost her a secure spot in one of humanity’s underground cities, and access to their virtual world. After all, her chances of avoiding the genetic-testing lotto are better than her chances of surviving topside.

Length: Novella | Rating: Hot | Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Themes: Magic, Hot Techies, Guns & Explosions, Futuristic, Evil Plots Need Foiling, Demons, Cyberpunk, Post-Apocalyptic, Virtual Reality

Instead of posting a snippet, today I thought I’d share some scenes from our setting file. The Children of the Undying books take place in and around Minnesota, which is a place I lived for roughly one third of my life. (If you watch How I Met Your Mother… I grew up around Marshall’s hometown of St. Cloud, which has even more snow and mayonnaise than depicted on the show. Also, the people are really that tall. No lie!)

However, this book is set in post-apocalyptic Minnesota. In our world, the demons razed much of Minneapolis in the 2050s.  The richest of the humans had already retreated to reinforced underground communities, and I’ve spent many an hour studying maps of the underground tunnels of Minneapolis.

For Demon Bait in particular, however, there are two important places. The first is the outpost where the heroine works, which is built in a futuristic, reconstructed compound around Mill Ruins Park.

Doesn’t it just look like it belongs in the apocalypse?

The second important place is the hero’s underground bolthole, one of the places he uses to hide from the demons when he’s out on trade missions. This one is also based on a real place, one I spent a fair bit of time at when I (briefly) attended the University of Minnesota.

I’ve always thought The Weisman Art Museum looked like a place custom-built to survive the apocalypse, so it was pretty fun to sneak a bomb shelter into the basement and imagine our half demon hero snitching famous art to decorate his underground lair. (Really, who can’t appreciate a demon with good taste?)

Since we’ve already given away a ton of copies of Demon Bait, I’m going to give away an ARC of the first full novel in the series, Hammer Down.  It’s out in just five short weeks, so you won’t have long to wait!

While the tattered remains of humanity huddle underground, hiding in their virtual world, Devi prefers living topside, making dangerous hauls through the demon-infested wasteland earth has become. The wealth that comes from smuggling supplies to those shunned as summoner-born or demon-touched doesn’t hurt, either.