Anya Bast

Cross-posted from Between Fire and Ice.

In one week, Embrace of the Damned will release. Broder Calderson has written a letter of introduction to you.

Dear Reader ~

My name is Broder Calderson and I was once a Viking. I have lived for over a thousand years, most of them under the sadistic control of Loki, the trickiest and cruelest of the Norse gods. Loki stabbed a sliver of demon through my soul in punishment for my sins. It is a dark part of me I must always keep under control. Loki imprisons me through the sliver, along with other men, as warriors in a fight to prevent Ragnarök, an apocalypse for the gods. We are the Brotherhood of the Damned.

It’s not like I didn’t deserve punishment for what I did. My damning was born on a bloody night when I became something other than myself, a berserker of old, cutting down all those in my path. For that crime, I deserved death. Instead I got the never ending torment of eternal life and enslavement.

My advice to you, never offend the Norse gods.

I thought my suffering couldn’t get worse, but then Loki decided to “reward” me. A thousand years to the day of my punishment, he unlocked my chains and allowed me a woman. Not just any woman. Jessamine Hamilton is the single most perfect creature to have ever walked the earth. With an attitude to rival any Viking female and curves sweet enough to make an immortal warrior cry, she’s the one person in centuries able to bring me to my knees and make me surrender to my darkest impulses.

With Jessa, I see a future for myself, the first one I’ve seen for a thousand years that’s worth living for. Before her, I only desired death. Yet our time is limited. Loki can yank on my chain whenever he chooses. For now I enjoy my time with Jessa, even though she drives me insane with lust. I try not to think about the time I’ll have to let her go. No thought could be more painful.

And it’s not just our limited time together that’s a concern. Loki never does anything that doesn’t cause chaos and Jessamine is no exception. She is much more than the human woman she appears to be. Her secrets run deep and the danger they cause run even deeper. I will be forced to return to my brutal Viking ways to protect her.

Sincerely, Broder

(cross-posted from Fire and Ice) ….and it’s that time of the year. Gardening time. As I sit writing this post, a man is out next to the house tilling up massive amounts of ground for me to plant things. I’m, erm, sort of being ambitious about my planting projects this year.

For years now I’ve been wanting to do a large, proper organic garden. I want to be able to grow food we can prepare and eat at our own table. We’ve recently moved and now I have all the planting space I need.

So…yeah, kind of ambitious. I’m planning to plant a row of raspberry plants, blackberry bushes, a strawberry patch, make a blueberry hedgerow, and grow a whole slew of vegetables. Oh, did I mention grapes, I’m going to grow those too.

And all of this will be done without pesticides or any chemicals that I, or my family, will have a chance of ingesting. I’ve done my research, but, honestly, I’m a new gardener with a limited amount of experience.

I know that in order to control for birds (berries, yo. Birds like berries) I’ll have to set up scarecrows. I also know that to control for bugs and weeds, I’ll have to lay straw beneath the plants and plant marigolds and garlic (repels bugs). The jury is out on the black weed-prevention material. People keep telling me it’s not worth it.

As usual, I didn’t wade in, I just threw myself headfirst into the deep end. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going. (Hold me, I’m scared.)

Does anyone have any good advice for me? I need all of it I can get.

I started off writing erotic PNR for Ellora’s Cave. That was more years ago than I would like to think about. So long that I’m now beginning to get the rights back to all those novellas I published way back when.

I’ve been taking them one by one and updating them. Changing language I used back then, but wouldn’t use now, changing scenes here and there. After that I’m having new covers commissioned and releasing them as self-published ebooks for the Kindle, Nook, and on Smashwords.

It’s been interesting revisiting my older works on a number of different levels. I thought I would find the writing shakier, since I’d just been starting out and we all grow and develop as writers over time. While I have changed and updated certain things in these novellas, the writing was much stronger than I’d imagined.

The Embraced series has four novellas total. They follow the stories of four vampires. The first book, Blood of the Rose is set in the 1800s. The next two, Blood of the Raven and Blood of an Angel are contemporary. The final novella, Blood of the Damned, is futuristic. They all feature common secondary characters. You can do that with vampires since they’re immortal. Love it. 😉

I’m excited to give new life to this series and also excited to be dipping my toes into the world of self-publishing.

Another title I’m re-releasing is Ordinary Charm. This novella remains one of my personal favorites because not only does it feature a witch as a heroine, Serena has a few more curves than you see in your average romance novel heroine.

The hero is pretty interesting too, since he’s the physical vessel for a pagan god called Cernunnos.

Gotta love that, right?

I like the cover, too. Pretty eye-catching and straight to the point, don’t you think?.
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