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The Beast has Finally Been Claimed
It took us a lot longer than we first expected. Oh sure, we realized it was possible, but there couldn’t really be that much of a story to tell about Crystal and her troubled life when she stumbled onto the affairs of a pack of werewolves. Turns out there was a lot of story – and even more that has yet to be told. But we (Dawn Michelle and I, acting as her ever faithful advisor and scribe) wrapped it up in six parts of a paranormal serial romance. And the sixth part of the Claimed by the Beast is finally out!
The story doesn’t really end there though. Or maybe it does… the problem is, I started asking her about some of the other characters and, combined with our vacation Mackinaw City in Michigan, a new story began to take form. It was something different for both us, a historical paranormal romance. It was rough at first, trying to slip fantasy into the history of the world as it really happened, but we think we’ve found a way.
So after a late night brain storming session I’ve mapped out how to break out the ideas and breathe life into them. What remains will be a single prequel book called Taken by the Beast. The elders of the pack Crystal encountered have their own tragic stories that deserve to be told, and readers deserve to know them.
So, Dawn Michelle fans, don’t worry that this is the end of Claimed by the Beast, there will be more to come, hopefully as soon as September.
Until then, here’s the cover and links to part 6 of Claimed by the Beast. Or if you want to start at the beginning, you can find it here: (Amazon, Amazon UK, iTunes, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smaswhords – all of them free!).
(part 6 is not available anywhere else yet)
And as for Jason Halstead… in a day or two I’ll be posting about my latest release, Voidhawk – Broken Shards. It’s fantasy like you can’t begin to imagine and brings back all your favorite characters and then some!
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.
Fur and Motorcycles
I’ve been quiet on the blogging front lately, but it’s been for a darn good reason. I’ve been busy! Busy collaborating and helping to get new books out. New books that are doing far better than I thought possible. The books are titled, “Claimed by the Beast, and officially they’re under the name Dawn Michelle, which happens to be shared by my love wife. The author’s picture matches too, so what gives?
Well, the official version of the story is that I’m taking her influence and ideas and helping to rework them into this paranormal romance serial novel. Claimed by the Beast – Part One (UK link) has spent almost a week now in the top 200 ranking of all free books in the UK (including multiple genre lists with it ranked at a solid #1 position). Book Two (UK link), which is $.99, is on three top 10 lists in the UK and overall ranked somewhere under 1500. In the US it’s higher, but still on some top 100 lists and doing well.
What’s so special about it? Well there’s teen angst / high school senior drama without the sparkles and ridiculous Twilight-esque nonsense. There’s werewolves, witches, and a few other paranormal tie-ins. No vampires, sparkly or otherwise. She’s getting lots of feedback and a growing mailing list that, quite frankly, leaves me jealous. People are loving it and even I have to admit I’m having a lot of fine putting thoughts to paper and working out the details.
I mentioned parts 1 and 2, well part 3 will hopefully be released this weekend. Part 4 is still being edited and part 5 we’re hard at work writing. Her plan, at this point, is to wrap it up in 6 parts. We’ll see if that happens. Already the thought of a spin off serial is up in the air though, which is good and bad news.
What, good and bad? Great for her readers, but collaborating on another series will slow my own production down. Not to fear though, as soon as we finish up Claimed by the Beast I’m returning to put out another novel myself, probably my long awaited Voidhawk / Blades of Leander tie in. Then we’ll see what comes next. I’d love to do more Vitalis too, but there are only so many hours in the day.
Until then, if you’d like something a little different but still a load of fun, check out Claimed by the Beast. It’s fresh, young, and fun, but it balances that with some scary and dark themes too. It has a few sexy moments too, especially the further into the story you get. And just wait for part 4 – phew!
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.
Staking her Claim
For the past several weeks I’ve been working on a new project. A new book, but it’s more than a book. My wife loves that fact that I write stories and do a passable job at selling them. The problem is, most of them aren’t in areas that she has a lot of interest in. She’s more into romance, crime, and things that go bump in the night (with said bumping being accompanied by some bow-chikka-wow-wow music). So, we decided the next stuff was going to be a collaboration – a paranormal romance that I helped her on. And that’s why instead of a new book by Jason Halstead, we have part 1 in a serial novel by Dawn Michelle.
Today marks the official release of Claimed by the Beast – Part One. It centers around a young lady struggling with issues. Before you scoff and compare it to Twilight, consider how many young women there are in the world that aren’t already struggling with issues. Body images, grades, peer pressure, overly zealous boyfriends, the list goes on. Even I was surprised to hear some of the problems and concerns.
So here we’ve got a good girl that is a social pariah thanks to her sense of morals and attention to teachers and good grades. The problem? She wants to fit in. Wants to do it so badly that she’s willing to let her morals slide to make it happen. Until that backfires and she’s made a laughing stock at a party.
What could be worse than that? That’s where the biker gang comes in. And the thing lurking in the darkness that has decided to mark her as its next victim.
Interested? It’s a paranormal romance that we’ve managed to complete three parts on so far. We’re looking at the entire series being five to six parts long, each over 20,000 words (novelette length). The pacing is set for every 3 to 4 weeks a new serial being released.
Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and iTunes will be released in a few weeks.
And, alongside that, I plan to get back to being focused on my stories. I haven’t quite decided yet, but it’s either more Vitalis or more Voidhawk / Blades of Leander next (yes, my next fantasy book will briefly blend those settings together).
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.
My Baby Grew Up
In later 2012 Jason Halstead (that’s me) wrote and published a fantasy book called Child of Fate. Since I am Jason Halstead, I’ll stop talking about myself in third person – it’s creepy. Child of Fate came out of nowhere for me and was honestly little more than an experiment at first. An experiment I hoped would do well because I had a lot of ideas of where to go with it.
By March I was selling hundreds of copies in a month. Yes, hundreds. It was amazing. I quickly wrote book 2, Victim of Fate, and then followed it up with Silver Dragon to cap off the Blades of Leander trilogy. People wanted more though, so I began a second series called the Order of the Dragon and it grew to four books (all available now).
What’s it about? A group of young adults, kids still by modern standards, that are forced to grow up fast by their environments. Marauding monsters, international plots and intrigue, and behind it all a menacing threat with an agenda that goes far beyond the dreams of farm boys and princesses.
Child of Fate is still flying off the virtual shelves these days, but what has me really excited is that after almost a year of working on it, the audiobook version is complete and available!
Now I’ve done audiobooks before. In fact I think I have five others out and more that are being worked on presently. Child of Fate isn’t like any of those. It’s not that it has some special sentimental place in my heart or anything, it’s just a game changing book. I have to credit the narrator for that, Sean Wybrant. Sean did things with his voice for each character that made me laugh or gasp in amazement. Then when that wasn’t enough (there are some talking fantasy monsters involved), he turned on the special effects and made them even more amazing. He blew me away, and his performance forced me to offer him the second book in the series.
So if you’re in the mood to listen to an epic fantasy story told with such variety and skill that you can close your eyes and feel like you’re there, please check it out. Just don’t try that if you’re listening to it while driving (the closing your eyes bit). I promise you won’t be disappointed!
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.
Off to Boarding School
If you’re a parent you just had a guilty flash of memory where, at one point or another, you fantasized about shipping your kid(s) off to boarding school. If you haven’t had that thought yet, you will, just wait and see. The thing is, this post isn’t about me getting rid of my kids (or you, for that matter). It’s about somebody else who’s done something similar. Several somebodies, and they all happen to be fictional.
Before you become convinced I’ve overdosed on medication after finishing up the grueling 12 day heavy lifting process of moving (I probably have), let me explain this is a book idea. I’ve already hinted in the past of another possible Katalina Wimple book (The Lost Girls series). But poor Katy has been through so much I’m torn. I really do think of her as an abusive sister that I can’t help but love. She’s earned an early retirement – the good kind, not the one involving fertilizing daisies. So what to do?
Those familiar with Katalina’s story know that after a very traumatic event in her childhood she was taken in by a police officer named Janice Wimple. She did everything right and made it possible for Katy to move forward with her life and one day trust and love again. I’m thinking having Katalina spending her life trying to repay the favor to other women and children in scary places isn’t enough. Or at least the way she does it needs to change. Instead of having a job as a police detective for special victims, maybe it’s time she opened up her house to others.
Imagine a half dozen girls with their own troubled pasts living in the same house and having to put up with Katalina, who gets frustrated and tends to swear and punch things a lot, but beneath the anger and fear she’s got a lot of teach and give. Enough so that these young ladies that have futures involving drugs, crime, and a string of abusive relationships might have a chance at decent lives.
At least until the deranged serial killer with an angry spirit on his shoulder catches Katy’s scent and decides to start hunting his way to her by hurting everyone she’s helped out.
Sounds like it might just be a fun book! And possibly open up the possibility of a new series based on the “kids” that Katalina helps out. Maybe even something young adult or new adult. Yikes… that’s a freaky thought for someone like me. Not sure I could tone myself down enough to do that, but maybe I can find somebody willing to help me with the softer side of younger fiction…
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.
The Brakes Don’t Work!
I’m nearly 30,000 words into The Sands of Betrayal, the third book in my Order of the Dragon fantasy series. I hope to have it finished by the end of August, which gives me just shy of two weeks to write a lot of words. Yikes. Okay, moving on…
That’s neat in and of itself, but that doesn’t mean that’s the only thing going on. When I’m not writing and I have a chance to do so, I’m thinking about writing. I can’t stop doing it either, it just happens whether I expect it or not. On the ride home last night from Michigan’s Renaissance Festival I dreamed up some really disturbing / upsetting ideas for the book I’m writing right now. Stuff I hadn’t considered before, but it was so powerful I’ve already started writing it in. It’s my way of telling my characters to stop thinking they write the stories.
But there’s other ideas out there too. For example I have one idea I’ve blogged about a little bit before. It involves a young women with a terminal disease that’s lost at sea. A few years later she’s found on the shore of a tropical island by some spring breakers. The bad part: she has no memory of who she is or where she’s been aside from her name, Tam’rah. The good part: she’s completely healed. And as the story unfolds she learns she’s more than just healed, she’s special. Special in a bad-things-are-coming-for-you kind of way. But she’s got some amazing tricks of her own that she’s discovering too. And of course, there will be bumps and twists along the way.
I’ve got a concept for a fifth Lost Girls book, which will pit the semi-retired Captain Katalina Wimple against a man who’s not only evil, but he’s caught her taste through one of his victims and he won’t stop until he finds her and kills her. And everyone she’s ever cared about.
And now onto another idea that just rolled into my head. I’ve been challenged many times to write young adult or new adult fiction but I just don’t have it in me. My writing is too visceral. Too real. Too grisly. And, occasionally, too naughty. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t do a hybrid. I’ve got the perfect character and setting for it, in fact: Jessica Baxter, daughter of Eric Baxter, the star of Dark Earth. Jessica is just about college age and even though they’ve moved from Michigan to Dark Earth to try and civilize the cruel people of that world, there’s no reason she shouldn’t be allowed to come back for college. Fortunately Northern Michigan University doesn’t have any rules or stipulations about allowing witches on their roster.
I’ve got other books for my existing series planned too – a fourth book (Dragonlady) to end the Order of the Dragon series, for example. And then there’s my next Vitalis book which will explore the infection spreading on Earth as well as the effect the Vitalian crystals that were dropped in Europa’s atmosphere have on the basic life and the researchers living on that planet. And there’s more Voidhawk to come down the road too, although I’m not sure what, exactly, will happen there yet.
So many words, so few hours. But I’m trying to crank them out as fast as I can. One of these days I hope to be able to focus on writing full time, instead of just part time. That requires a lot more word of mouth and book sales though, but I’m not the pandering type so I’ll just keep writing and doing my best to give my readers (past, present, and future) the types of books they tell me they want to read.
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 