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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.
It’s Time for Some Payback!
No tricks and no fancy play on words today. This post is about the release of my latest novel, Silver Dragon. I’ve blogged about it a few times but now it’s finally here. Silver Dragon is the third book in my Blades of Leander Series (Child of Fate and Victim of Fate preceded it). It picks up the story immediately after Alto has buried his fallen loved ones and follows him on his path of revenge.
Rather than waste time trying to drop teasers without spoiling the story, here’s the blurb, cover, and links. If you enjoy an epic fantasy that has a little bit of everything in it, head on over and pick it up.
Alto’s hands are stained with the blood of the fallen. The only justice he can find must be had by the blade, but the path of vengeance shows him that he is but a pawn in a far more dangerous game. Sarya’s plans reach far beyond anything the young warrior could imagine and require a sacrifice from him greater than he can give.
Alto must make fear his ally if he is to lead his companions into the dragon’s lair with any hope of saving the woman he loves and the two nations he calls home.
Barnes and Noble (coming soon)
iTunes (coming soon)
Sony (coming soon)
Print (coming soon)
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.
Vengeance, Vegas Style
I’m cheating here – this article is one I posted on a fellow writer’s blog a week or two back. Leah Rhyne, writer and zombie afficionado, was the lovely young lady to host it for me. She’s a talented writer and a classy lady, I encourage anyone interested to head over and check out her blog at http://www.leahrhyne.com/. Last I checked she and her husband were working hard on raising money for a charity, St. Jude’s, I believe, and her hubby offered to shave his head if they reached their goal.
Now then, on to the blog post, it’s a blatant attempt on my part to promote my latest book, Bounty. But amidst all that promotion I think it’s got some interesting bits and a touch of humor. Definitely worth the sixty seconds it takes to read the blog, not to mention the minimal cost of buying the novel and enjoying Carl, Jessie, Tanya, Sarah, and Allison’s exploits!
Sin City has a history of organized crime and preying on the weak and innocent. Bounty, the third book in the Wanted trilogy, lives up to that legacy.
Writing Wanted was a strike of luck for me. It seemed like a great idea but I found myself hung up from time to time figuring out what came next. It deviated drastically from my original plans but thanks to a moment of inspiration I was able to turn that deviation into a great book. I didn’t realize how great a book it was until it became a bestseller and topped multiple Amazon charts.
My readers called for a sequel, they weren’t happy with the story of Carl, Jessie, and Tanya ending so soon. That allowed me to write Ice Princess, but it was even more of a trial than the first one was. I was very happy with the finished product, thanks to a few more random bubbles of creativity along the way. As a matter of fact, with the end of Ice Princess I felt myself getting choked up as I identified with a couple of the characters personally. In particular Jiri Kurkova, the father of Tanya, Miss Ice Princess herself.
After Ice Princess I was spent. There was nothing more I could do with these characters. They’d done it all. They’d been dragged through the mud. They’d been shot, beaten, stabbed and worse. What more pain could I inflict? Well that’s a stupid thing to ask a writer, especially one with an occasionally macabre sense of humor! The concept came to me out of nowhere one day on my way into to work at 6:30 in the morning. What concept? I won’t spoil it, but I will say it involves an incredible fear of loss that all of us experience at one point or another. Here’s one of the tweets I’m using to promote it as well: “My new release, Bounty, focuses on family values and why you shouldn’t try to kidnap Carl Water’s family.”
Check out Wanted, it’s a free ebook, and then once you’re hooked look up Ice Princess and then Bounty, the incredible conclusion to the trilogy.
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.
Betrayal by Birth
This is a short chapter, and it’s entirely too passive for my tastes. Otherwise it’s ready to go, but it deserves the time to be fully rewritten. In spite of that it inspires some wicked thoughts for the future – thoughts and a direction the original story never took but one I might very well add to it. Originally Betrayal’s Hands was going to be a trilogy but the interest was lost in it and now, rather than continue it over multiple segments, I think I’ll just end up making this longer and tie up the loose ends that I left for another day.
Chapter 13
In the north Anna showed signs of returning to who she’d once been, but she grew more and more ill as the season changed. Within a few months it became impossible for her to deny, she carried Makan’s child in her womb.
Anna was devastated by the realization and fought to hide it. She also considered trying to void the babe from her body, but it was too late by the time she’d accepted the truth. Killing it could kill her as well. And so she lived, hating herself and hating the baby within her each day more and more. She was determined to destroy it with her own hands as soon as it was born.
As time passed and her belly grew she was forced to retire from her command, if only temporarily. She wouldn’t have her soldiers knowing what it was that she carried within her. How tainted she’d become. She sought out her sister and arranged for her to go into hiding to bear the child in secret. Shar created a special assignment for her, as far as her soldiers were concerned. A secret mission to strike fear into the hearts of the Aradmathians. None but the two women knew the truth.
Winter was longer than usual, and by the time it was over Anna was nearly ready to bear the bastard child. Shar had her cloistered with a midwife that visited daily in a small homestead a week’s ride from the army, out of the way of the supply routes to further conceal her condition.
Anna had also put in a request to see Corillius. She’d thought long and hard on her behavior towards him and knew she must put it right. Her attitude towards men had grown somewhat rougher than it was before; it was the only way she found herself able to deal with them. Gone was the camaraderie she’d once felt. In its place was the uneasiness of a cat that knew only that the dog wouldn’t snap at it so long as the dog knew the cat would attack it at a moment’s notice.
But Cor she’d treated wrongly, and she knew it even if she didn’t feel it. Having sent for him, she waited impatiently. She was anxious to see him and afraid to see him. Cor was the only one who’d seen her at her worst, when she had been Baron Makan’s plaything. She spat at the thought of it, dredging up considerable anger. Yet at the same time a part of her quailed in terror at the memory.
Her sister, Sharlotta, had arrived instead of Corillius. Shar told her of their cousin’s fate, how he’d ridden back into Aradmath to exact the vengeance upon Makan that Anna herself had called down upon him. She also told her how intelligence had learned that Makan’s two daughters had disappeared, one slain and another missing. No more news had come of it, and after many months had since passed, the worse was assumed. Corillius Argondiir, one of the army’s greatest single warriors, had fallen.
Anna’s mood grew sullen at the news and she took ill for many days. The rest of her pregnancy was plagued with troubles of one sort or another. It was only the end of it, one cool late spring night, that brought Anna and her midwife any relief.
Several hours enduring the pains of labor finally produced a large baby boy. Anna stared at him, sweat and tears running down her face from the agony of the ordeal. She was in a state of shock, unbelieving that such a thing had come from within her. She stared and she reached for him, her lips trembling. The midwife finished tying the child’s cord and dried him off, then wrapped him in a blanket before handing him to Anna.
Anna took the child, then remembered her silent vow to herself. Her hand rubbed down his cheek then settled around his throat. Still trembling, she tried to make her hand squeeze, but she couldn’t do it as she stared into the innocent babe’s eyes. She looked away, fresh tears running from her eyes.
“Take him!” Anna commanded, thrusting the boy back to the midwife. Confused, she did as she was ordered, then helped Anna finish her ordeal while the babe rested in a cradle, strangely silent for one just introduced to the world.
While finishing her delivery, Anna’s mind wandered. She still sought the death of the child. It represented her slavery and imprisonment to her enemyl. But now she had hatched a better way of making it happen. Instead of slaying the boy herself, she wanted to take up the quest that Corillius had failed. She would take her bastard son and confront Makan himself with him Before his very eyes she would spill the boy’s blood and then Makan’s as well. His whore of a wife had only born him daughters, she knew, and the one he had sired would die in front of him, with him helpless to intervene.
The midwife looked up, alarmed, at the strange laughter that kept coming from her charge while she pushed out the last of the remnants of the pregnancy with her final contractions.
To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
Books by Jason 