That quiet place

I don't believe in the Muse, but I do believe in inspiration and this week I've been finding a lot of it over at Marjorie M. Liu's blog. Today she posted this quote:

“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”

- JOSEPH CAMPBELL

I've been spending a lot of time in my version of what Campbell is referring to. It's helping me sort through the stuff I'm dealing with and work through the questions I need to answer in order to tell Megan's story the best, most true way. I expect to be there for a while yet, maybe another week or two, but when I emerge I will be more whole and so will Megan's story.

See you on the flip side.

In the Dark of Dreams releases today!

Just a quick reminder that the newest book in Marjorie M. Liu's excellent Dirk & Steele paranormal romance series, In The Dark Of Dreams, is out today. In case you missed it, you can read my review here.

I loved it.

Advanced review: IN THE DARK OF DREAMS by Marjorie M. Liu

She could never forget the boy with the ice blue eyes...She was only twelve when she saw the silver boy on the beach, but Jenny has never stopped dreaming about him. Now she is grown, a marine biologist charting her own course in the family business -- a corporation that covertly crosses the boundaries of science into realms of the unknown...and the incredible.

And now he has found her again, her boy grown into a man: Perrin, powerful and masculine, and so much more than human, leaving Jenny weak with desire, and aching for his touch.

But with their reunion comes danger. For Perrin and Jenny -- and all living creatures -- their only hope for preventing the unthinkable lies in a mysterious empire far beneath the sea...and in the power of their dreams.


IN THE DARK OF DREAMS is a book about yearning. It's also a book about the ocean, dreaming, merpeople, magic (both real and fictionalized), dolphins, loss, betrayal, trust, hope, failure, redemption, love, discovery, the power of believing, how 1+1 sometimes = more than 2, and a little bit about a kind, sad boy who can start fires with his mind. (Oh, Eddie! I can't wait for your book. <3) I loved this story for all those things, even the hard things, but most of all for the yearning. And, in my opinion, nobody writes yearning better than Marjorie Liu.

This, the tenth book in Marjorie's very excellent Dirk & Steele paranormal romance series, has a slightly different flavor than the others. I typically describe these books as being very action-forward--they almost have an urban fantasy feel to them, though the romance is always front and center. And, while there was still plenty of action in this book, there was something about it that left more room for Perrin and Jenny. As if, between those action scenes, their longing for each other swelled to fill every available crevice, ballooning up and off the page, larger and deeper and more hungry than that of previous Dirk & Steele couples.

I really enjoyed Perrin and Jenny. Perrin, especially, is richly drawn. He's a complicated man: equal parts impassioned revolutionary and world-weary cynic, stony warrior and hopeless romantic. Jenny is unapologetically practical yet driven entirely by her obsession with a merman she saw on a beach when she was a child--a paradoxical combination that I absolutely loved. There was a grittiness to them that made them both seem very real (despite one of them being a merman), and that quality seeped into their romance. They did not sweep each other off their feet; they crept ever closer to each other, hesitant, tentative, insecure. They did not make poetic declarations of their love for one another; they allowed their actions to speak for them, in bold statements of loyalty, commitment, trust, tenderness, sacrifice. I have to say it again: the romance in this book--the longing, the hope, the surrender--is beautifully written.

I also felt the world around Perrin and Jenny was especially vivid. Much of this story takes place in or on the ocean and Marjorie has done an amazing job of bringing the sea to life. For those who have read previous Dirk & Steele books, we also learn more of Rik's story and a bit about Eddie, who, I'm not ashamed to admit, I'm already half in love with. He stole every scene he was in.

All in all, a beautifully written and well crafted love story. Despite it being the tenth book in the series, I feel you could easily pick this up and enjoy it without having read previous books. Though, after reading this book, you'll definitely want to read the others.

You can read the prologue here, on Marjorie's blog. You can pre-order here: B&N | Indiebound | Amazon

IN THE DARK OF DREAMS releases on November 30, 2010.

Early review of Marjorie M. Liu's A WILD LIGHT (and contest!)

Obsidian shadows of the flesh…tattoos with hearts, minds, and dreams. By day, they are my armor. By night, they unwind from my body to take on forms of their own—demons of the flesh, turned into flesh.

For too long Maxine Kiss has felt an inexplicable darkness around her—a force she channels into hunting the demons bent on destroying the human race. But when she finds herself covered in blood and crouched beside her grandfather’s dead body with no memory of what happened or of the man she loves, Maxine begins to fear that the darkness has finally consumed her.

With blood on her hands and her sanity in question, Maxine must face the truth about who she really is and embrace the love of the only man who can help her—before she loses what she cares about most: her family.


I had the opportunity to read an advanced copy of A WILD LIGHT, the fifth installment in Marjorie M. Liu's excellent urban fantasy series.

Let me just get right to it: Wow.

This book makes your breath hitch and your heart pound. It makes you take breaks to recover, to take it all in. It makes you ache. Maxine, the boys, Grant—they’re all at their most raw, stripped down to gristle and bone, sheer force of will and strength of heart. Marjorie didn’t flinch when she wrote this story: it's got sharp edges and everyone is tested again and again and again. The results are not always what you expect. But, boy, does this book have heart.

It’s difficult to discuss the events of the story without giving things away, but I can say that A Wild Light answers many of the questions that have been building in the series so far. Maxine’s world is turned upside down yet again and she finds herself in an impossible situation: she must make a choice but it seems that either option will, in its own way, ruin everything she stands for and the only goodness she sees within herself.

The story is written beautifully, from the first chapter to the last. Marjorie's prose is lyrical and haunting, as it always is. The ending (and by this, I mean Maxine’s choice) is brilliant. Clever, gritty, unexpected. I love it so much—it’s so very Maxine and so very right for the story. Also? The final lines of the book made me squish Beatrice (my nook) to my chest*. Just saying.

Fans of the series will love A WILD LIGHT. However, if you haven’t read the series yet, this isn’t the book to start with. These are best read in order, beginning with the novella Hunter Kiss, available both as a standalone e-book and as part of the Wild Thing anthology. For more info on the series, including excerpts, please see the Hunter Kiss section of Marjorie's website.

A WILD LIGHT goes on sale July 27th but you can pre-order it right now, right here! B&N | Amazon | Indiebound

So! Since I got a free copy of this fabulous book and since I heart it so very much, I'm going to pay it forward by giving a copy away to one lucky winner.

Here's what you have to do: Cross-post this review to help advertise the book. You'll get one entry for each legit cross-post, legit being your blog, LJ, Twitter, etc. The point is to get the word out about the book, so please cross-post with that in mind. Please do not post this in inappropriate places like other author's forums and the like. Leave me a comment with a link to your post and you're entered!

Open to anyone, anywhere, as long as you love tough-as-nails women, smallish feisty demons, hot dudes who walk with canes, and Bon Jovi (natch). If you'd prefer an e-book version or an earlier book in the series, that's fine too. Contest ends midnight EST 7/25/10 (so I have time to post the winner on 7/26 and everyone else can run to the store on release day and buy their copy!).

Book-based video game

Hey everyone!

I may have mentioned this before, but it bears mentioning again. A company called PassionFruit Games (www.passionfruitgames.com) is making a video game based on TIGER EYE, the first (absolutely fantastic) book in Marjorie M. Liu's Dirk & Steele paranormal romance series. Marjorie wrote the game's script and PassionFruit has already involved fans in key decisions like how certain characters should look. It seems like a great joint venture that's all about finding new ways to have fun in the world of the book while still staying true to the story. I'm really excited about it!

If you're interested in learning more about the game, click here to see the screenshots portion of the PassionFruit website. You can get a sense of the look and feel of the game as well as the nature of the "casual" game play. While you're there, I'd recommend signing up for their newsletter - full of interesting interviews with the PassionFruit staff (I'm learning all about how a video game is made!) and sneak previews of the game. (And contests, like the one where you can become a beta tester if you post about the game on your blog. :D)

And, just in case you haven't read TIGER EYE, Go! Buy! Love! (B&N | Amazon | Independent)