A Look Behind BEHIND THE MASK

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Behind the MaskGuess what’s out today?? YES! The fourth book in Carolyn Crane’s Associates series, BEHIND THE MASK.

You guys, this story is so super hot, twisty and amazing.

You can take that with a grain of salt, as it’s no secret that Carolyn is my CP (critique partner) and bestie. However, that means two things – I read this story first, before ANY of you could (ha ha ha!) and I’m the one who egged her on to do more, go farther, give me that hot steamy dark smexy.

Let me set the scene. Carolyn was here in Santa Fe, visiting me last February. We went out walking, to see some art in the galleries, do a bit of boutique shopping. Then we settled into the bar at Inn at Loretto, which is one of my favorite bars in Santa Fe. We scored a table by the fireplace, drank wine, and I fed her notes from my Kindle about sex, death and other fabulously intense elements.

Sometimes I wonder what people at the other tables nearby were thinking…

Now, I’m not sure what Carolyn did with this and others of my suggestions, as I haven’t read her final version. However, I can’t wait to read it again and see! She’s such a brilliant writer and works magic in revisions. The story blew me away in rough draft – it might kill me in its final form. Which it sounds like it’s doing to others, like in this review at That’s What I’m Talking About.

At any rate, I’m giving away a digital copy in the format of choice to a random commenter! Tell me what intrigues you about this story by midnight US Eastern Time on May 21 and I’ll choose a winner. The official blurb is below.

When her long lost sister – a prostitute – is won in a card game by a brutal drug cartel, Zelda knows what she has to do: take her place. Save her. Focus on infiltrating the shadowy group on behalf of the Associates, and try not to think about why she left the spying game years ago. She’s slept with dangerous criminals before; she can do it again.

Hugo Martinez is one of South America’s most lethal and wanted men, a legendary mercenary living on a windswept mountain. Even at the height of the war he wasn’t in the habit of taking women captive, but the American whore has seen his face. And he and the orphan boy need a cook. He shouldn’t want this woman, but there’s something so unusual about her…

Little by little, Zelda finds herself falling for her captor…but is he the killer she’s been hunting all these years?

Talon, Castle, Assassins and Sheep

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Talon of the Hawk Finished Copies!Look what arrived late last night! Yes, the UPS guy came by around 7:30 with this largesse. Finished copies of THE TALON OF THE HAWK!!! I may have fondled them.

I’m over at the Contemporary Romance Cafe today, for my usual first Thursday post, talking about prickly heroines and mixing it up with Ursula from TALON and Detective Kate Beckett from Castle.

Also, I did a really fun interview with Jennifer Estep over at Magical Musings. It includes a giveaway! In my typical style, after I glommed her terrific Elemental Assassin series, I stalked her on Twitter and made her be my friend. She kindly suggested doing this post, for which we are now both grateful, being equally crazy getting ready for the RT Convention. I get to have brunch with her there and meet for reals – very much looking forward to that!

Finally, the crazy gals at I Smell Sheep also did an interview with me and are hosting a giveaway also. More than you *ever* wanted to know about me?

Possible. Entirely possible.

All The Things! #RT15 Bound

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

UnderContractYesterday I revealed the cover for UNDER CONTRACT, the third book in my FALLING UNDER series. I’m really loving this one – particularly because this is exactly how I picture my Los Angeles heroine, Celestina Sala. I had the idea/fantasy of this book a long time ago, but when it came to writing it, the execution was not easy. Early reader reports are that I got the power balance and compliance questions just right. Such a relief!

The kinkier the sex, the higher the price tag…

Ryan Black has admired Celestina Sala from afar for years, her lush body and sensual nature calling to the dominant in him. For just as many years, Celestina was off-limits—married, proud and self-sufficient. But all that has changed, and now Celestina is in debt and in need…and available. Ryan proposes a contract: he’ll pay off her debt if she gives herself to him in bed, yielding control in exchange for the pain and pleasure he’ll bring them both. 

There are words for women who take money for sex, and none of them are nice ones. Celestina never thought she’d have to sink this low, but giving up control sounds more enticing than ever before. And suddenly it’s not about having to give in to Ryan. It’s about wanting to. 

But when Ryan’s dark past comes to light, they may both be in over their heads. The terms of his contract say her body is his…but her heart may be another story.

One thing is for sure—now that Ryan has Celestina, he can never let her go.

This week I’m prepping to leave for the RT Booklovers Convention and, speaking of delicate execution of consent issues, one of the many, many (oh, so many!) things I’ll be doing there is giving a craft workshop on Walking the Line of Consent. I’ve given that workshop online before, but it should be very interesting to do in person.

You can see all of my appearances here. Not on that list is the Giant Book Fair on Saturday, May 16. It runs from 11 to 2 and is open to the public! So, even if you’re not going to the convention, you can still come by the fair! There will be TONS of authors signing both your keeper books and ones for sale. There will be maps, so you can find specific authors easily – including me! If you’re in the Dallas area, come on by and visit. I’ll have prezzies to give away. 🙂

See you in Dallas, I hope!

Cover Reveal for UNDER CONTRACT!

Jeffe Kennedy / / News

UnderContract

Under Contract

 The kinkier the sex, the higher the price tag…

Ryan Black has admired Celestina Sala from afar for years, her lush body and sensual nature calling to the dominant in him. For just as many years, Celestina was off-limits—married, proud and self-sufficient. But all that has changed, and now Celestina is in debt and in need…and available. Ryan proposes a contract: he’ll pay off her debt if she gives herself to him in bed, yielding control in exchange for the pain and pleasure he’ll bring them both. 

There are words for women who take money for sex, and none of them are nice ones. Celestina never thought she’d have to sink this low, but giving up control sounds more enticing than ever before. And suddenly it’s not about having to give in to Ryan. It’s about wanting to. 

But when Ryan’s dark past comes to light, they may both be in over their heads. The terms of his contract say her body is his…but her heart may be another story.

One thing is for sure—now that Ryan has Celestina, he can never let her go.

Learning My Own Lessons

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

MORWA workshop picA couple of weeks ago, I had the fabulous and fun privilege of flying out to St. Louis to teach a workshop to the Missouri Romance Writers of America (MORWA). They asked me to talk about structuring a serial novel, largely because of this terribly geeky blog post I wrote about it. (I think that’s a data point right there when people ask if writing blog posts is meaningful at all. Just saying.)

 In order to explain my method of structuring a serial novel, I started with the basic structure I use to structure any work. We talked quite a bit about the Three-Act Structure, where Act 1 is the first 25%, Act 2 is the middle 50%, going up to 75% through, with Act 3 being the final 25%. As with many RWA chapters – and one of the things I love about RWA – the members ranged from newbie writers stretching their muscles for the first time up to award-winning pros. So, as I was going over this structure pretty fast, in order to lay the foundation for the rest, I threw out that you know you’ve finished Act 1 because all the stakes are set. And that a solid first 25%, done correctly, will prevent the middle of the book from “sagging” or losing momentum. If you’re having problems with the middle 50%, go back and look at the first 25% and make sure you truly set all the stakes.

One of the newbies put up her hand and asked what that meant, to have the stakes set. Always a good reminder to me that stuff I take for granted at this point isn’t second nature to others.

I explained that the first 25% should introduce the characters, who they are, what they want and why they can’t have it. Some talk about the Three-Act Structure being that you get your protagonist up a tree in Act 1, throw rocks at them in Act 2 and get them down again by the end of Act 3. Setting the stakes is getting your hero or heroine firmly up in that tree.

 So, I’m back home and fully plunged into writing THE PAGES OF THE MIND, which is Dafne’s book, the fourth in my Twelve Kingdoms series. In order to meet deadline, I’ve set myself what is for me a fairly grueling pace of 2,200 words/day, six days/week. As I have a full-time day job, that’s about the most I can do consistently. Some days I do more in the time I have, some days considerably less. The considerably less days are the ones where I circle back and revise or add to previous scenes. (Adding is nearly *always* involved.) I write my books beginning to end, so I really hate circling back like that. It feels like I’m not making progress.

I was getting all frustrated with myself this week about it.

Guess where I’m at? Yeah – 26,000 words, which for those who don’t speak math, is right at 25% of what will probably be about a 105,000 word book. (Most novels are 80,000-120,000 words. Fantasies like this can be on the longer end of the spectrum.)

It hit me sometime yesterday, that OF COURSE I’m doing a lot of circling back, layering and tweaking. I’m setting the stakes for the rest of the book! Once my Act 1 is solid, the rest will fall into place more easily. I know this. I freaking taught people about this a couple of weeks ago.

How easily we forget.

I’m feeling much better now!

Speaking of The Twelve Kingdoms, we’re kicking off the blog tour (heh – I first typed “bog tour,” which isn’t nearly so fun) for THE TALON OF THE HAWK. Today there’s a very juicy excerpt – one of my favorite scenes! – at the Chosen by You Book Club. Let me know if you like it, too. Hee hee hee.

Also, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) is starting a bimonthly (every two months, not twice a month) newsletter of members’ new releases. I think it will be great! You can subscribe here.

Have a great weekend everyone!