Archive
All That Glitters Is Not Gold
And by glitters I mean bling. Or, to be more specific, Amelia Foster, aka Bling. This is the announcement of Bling 3.0, book 8 in my Lost Girls series!
As is often the case, I went into Bling 3.0 with a goal in mind. Almost an outline, in fact. Along the way Amy did what the women in this world often do to me – they let me know the story they want me to tell is not the story I thought it was. It got longer and longer and the plot twisted and things happened I wasn’t expecting. By the end it was nearly twice the length I’d planned, but that’s okay, it made for a great story!
But what’s it about? How could Amy go back for more after what happened to her in Bling 2.0? Well, modern medicine (circa 2073) is a miraculous thing. That and the new and improved upgrades that she gets by way of thanks for saving the wife and children of a very wealthy man. With survival and improvements comes a burden though: guilt. Not everyone made it back home and that’s not something she can live with. She has to go back to Dark Earth to find and save her brother.
So what’s next after this? Well, I’m working on a new Dark Universe book to pick up where the last one ended. The crews of the Uma and Sentinel are hunting for a new ship and they have to find it before the bounty hunters find them. Then they’ll need to hope they can get the new ship running before the Ampytheans find out about them robbing a graveyard and try to stop them.
In the meantime, check out Dawn Michelle if you like some magic and paranormal urban adventures. Spoiler alert: she’s my wife and I often help her with her stories. Her new one coming out soon will be a lot of fun: It involves demons and call girls and police officers… oh my!
To learn more about Jason Halstead visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
When Good People Go Bad
We’ve all had a grumpy neighbor or a teacher that seems to have it in for us. A boss that is determined to stop our advancement or get us fired. Or maybe even a crazy ex that likes to take tire irons to car windows and screwdrivers to leather seats. Those people are out there, and in a few cases maybe they require medication. Or maybe there’s another reason. Maybe something happened to them that started a dark and sinister spiral. Is it depression, anger, or an inexplicable need to lash out to control their own hurt?
That’s where my wife’s latest book comes in. She finished Claimed by the Beast and had so many ideas she wasn’t sure what to do with them. She was paralyzed with options. I wasn’t too worried because I was hammering away at my next book (Voidhawk: Broken Shards), while she figured it out. Except she didn’t.
Then we went on vacation to a place rich with history. Not just American history, but French, British, and Native American history too. We took a few tours and read up on a lot of local history. The end result: inspiration! One of Dawn Michelle’s ideas involved exploring a couple of the characters (Adrian and Guntar) from the Claimed by the Beast series and trying to explain how they became the men that they were. With our vacation behind us, she knew what story she needed to tell.
The end result of that was Taken by the Beast, a standalone historical paranormal romance that takes place during the American Revolution. It’s Adrian and Guntar’s story after they left Europe and came to America. To be fair, it centers more around Adrian and his first (and perhaps only) true love that he’s ever had – a Chippewa woman named Metina.
The thing is, they left Europe for a reason. To escape the fear, prejudice, and butchery that hunted their kind. America was the land of freedom and new opportunities. At least it was until the thing they sought to escape followed them.
But that’s enough of me giving away the story. It was a lot of fun to read and help her write and polish, although a bit darker than her earlier works. Then again, maybe that’s why I liked it so much? Whatever the case, I strongly urge you to check it out. It’s available on Amazon only for the next few months while we experiment with Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited and Amazon Lending programs. I sincerely apologize to non-Amazon / Kindle users, but we wanted to try this out. If you’re dying to read it anyhow, feel free to get in touch with Dawn (dawnmichelle@novelconceptpublishing.com) or myself (jason@booksbyjason.com) and we’ll see what we can do to help out. In the meantime, Dawn will be working on her next project – most likely an exploration of Stephanie, Beth, and Crystal as they come to terms with their new lives.
And now here’s the cover and links on Amazon!
As for Jason Halstead (that’s me, although spoken about in the third person, which is really weird), he’s putting the finishing touches to the end of a Vitalis: Communion and hopes to release it before the end of the month.
To learn more about Jason Halstead visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
Books by Jason 