Anya Bast

A Movie….

J and I watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang last night. I was skeptical at first because J’s recent choices have left me wondering if I shouldn’t revoke his status as Netflix Master (He who decides which movies to order), but Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was pretty damn good. It’s part noire detective story, part comedy, part mystery. The main character is an ex-thief turned accidental actor who ends up in L.A. and is played by Robert Downey Jr. (I’m attracted to this guy’s fucked-upedness). Val Kilmer plays a gay private eye (Gay Perry) and Michelle Monahan plays the sweet yet slutty love interest who has been obsessed with a series of pulp fiction P.I. novels since she was a little girl. I loved all these characters and the acting was fantastic.

It’s cheesy (esp. the ending) and cliched in places, but the dialogue was fast-placed and clever and had me laughing through the whole thing. Plus it’s got that edge of dark humor that I love so much. Definitely worth a look if you like this kind of movie. I don’t often talk about the movies I see, which means I really liked this one.

Two Books…

The Compass Rose, by Gail Dayton
The Barbed Rose, by Gail Dayton

These are two of the only Luna books I’ve been to swallow whole so far. On the surface I’d say this particular line would be right up my alley — significant fantasy with a touch of romance. Maybe it’s the books I’ve been selecting. *shrug* In any case, I found myself totally caught up in the “Rose” books and I’ll be watching for the release date of the next book about Kallista Varyl and her ilias.

The stories center around Kallista Varyl, a Naitan with the ability to direct lightning and a commander in her country’s military. When war breaks out and her people are getting the snot knocked out of them, she calls upon her God and is imbued with massive amounts of magic in return. She’s also “godmarked” with the symbol of the compass rose on the back of her neck. Throughout the first book she discovers other people who are also godmarked and finds that they each carry magic in them which she has the ability to direct. Each godmarked person lends a different quality to the magic as a whole — joy, order, creativity, ect… They all of them marry each other and form an “Ilian,” a family. Together they must defeat something far more powerful than simply a neighboring country who wants to invade them.

The books are incredibly well-written and I loved the characters….and there are a lot of them. I kept waiting for Dayton to lose control of all of them, but she never did. Each character is as well-fleshed out as the next. I’m really looking forward to the next book.

We had satellite internet installed yesterday and I’m in luuuurve. SO much better than dial-up. We live in the boonies, see, and satellite was the only fast internet service available to us.

They networked both our computers too, so my laptop has wireless Internet now. I can sit outside and pretend to write, while incessantly periodically checking my email and surfing the web. How cool is that?

Speaking of writing, I’m about halfway through with WITCH FIRE now. I’m so excited about these characters and their story. It’s been a while since I’ve allowed myself to be sucked so completely into my character’s heads. I’m incredibly happy that Berkley bought this book not only because (duh) BERKLEY BOUGHT MY BOOK, but also because I get to finish this story.

I love these characters so much and I’m very grateful I get to tell their story. 🙂

…is so PRETTY. I want to make a big juicy post. Alas, there is dinner to fix, movies to watch, husbands to cuddle and words to write.

Dear Author gave A Change of Season a very nice review today. Thanks Jane!

The first paranormal erotic romance I’ll be publishing with Berkley Sensation will be called WITCH FIRE.

I like it!

I have this fascination with dragonflies. They’re beautiful in an alien-like way and are brutal hunters. We have lots of them in our yard for some reason. I’m not sure why. There isn’t a lot of water around other than our little pond with our one lonely goldfish. Still, I see them hanging out in the bushes a lot, hunting other insects. They land on a leaf and go still, silent, waiting. When some yummy bit of insect flesh grows near, they swoop up and munch it.

So, I’m looking out the window and can see a dragonfly hunting on a bunch of catnip growing on my Kara-cat’s grave

Tangent: Yes, I’m aware how strange it is that catnip grows on my cat’s grave. No, we didn’t plant it there. I planted shadow-loving perennials which were quickly overtaken by the nip. It’s the only place in the whole yard where there’s a profusion of the stuff.

Being the nature-loving freak I am, I get up and sneak out there to get a closer look. By the time I get there the dragonfly is gone, but I hear a buzzing sound right by my ear, turn my head and come eye-to-eye with a hummingbird! I stare breathlessly for a moment, the hummingbird realizes what I am (eeek! Human!) and speeds off into a nearby tree.

Hee!

That’s the first one I’ve seen so far this year, but we usually have a bunch around here because of all the flowers in the yard. I’m bummed because my butterfly bushes didn’t come up this year! I might go see if I can find a couple mature ones to plant.

I get all freaky when I see dragonflies, hummingbirds, black vultures (love them) and herons (they’re so primordial looking). We won’t even talk about the squee of seeing or hearing an owl.

Gardening and nature blather is now over.

I know I’ve said it before, but I LOVE writing the villain. I don’t mean a cardboard mustache-twirler though. I mean a bad guy with depth. A man (or woman, man in the story I’m writing now) who’s bad and knows he’s bad. A man who has the motivation to be bad, at least in his own twisted reality. He’s doing malevolent, eeeevul things because he has a reason. If it’s done right, the reader can maybe almost–almost–sympathize with him.

And the only thing I like more than writing the bad guy is having the bad guy reap his karma.

I sold More Than Magick, a paranormal erotic romance, and its sequel to Berkley!

Squeee!!

Now available at EC’s eBay store and soon to be available at your local retail bookseller.

Seasons of Pleasure – A Change of Season By Anya Bast
Book 5 in the Seasons of Pleasure series.

Moira suffers from psychic attacks that bring not only pain, but also visions of a man named Dain d’Ange into her mind. Dain is the cursed thirteen lord of Aeoli, a man they say killed his wife with the chaotic and dark magick he possesses.

Desperate to find a cure for her attacks, she travels to Aeoli and its cursed thirteenth lord. The harsh winter closes in on her and she soon finds herself trapped with a man who is every degree as chilly as the season. However Moira senses that Dain isn’t always cold, and she vows to discover the heat that lies under his frigid exterior. It doesn’t take long for her coax the man from the monster.

When Dain’s brother Killian arrives, Moira finds herself seduced to both of their beds and is soon lost in a web of carnal pleasure. She also finds herself lost to Dain because as time passes she discovers she loves him.

But as the mystery of her attacks and of Dain’s history unravels, keeping him will be difficult.