rflong

I can now show off the beautiful cover for my forthcoming paranormal romance novel, Soul Fire. The artwork is by Anne Cain and is, as ever, amazing. She's done it again, completely capturing Daire and Rowan as I imagined them.

Iron born and iron bred. Trust not iron, it will see you dead.

Rowan Blake could really use a magic wand to keep her struggling art gallery afloat. But the faerie key she stumbles across is far from a lucky charm. It's a magnet for danger, and by touching it she's unwittingly put herself in the middle of a war between the forces of light and dark. And in the arms of its rightful owner, Prince Daire.

While searching for his brother, Daire finds himself trapped in the Iron World with a mere mortal woman who ignites his passion like no other. Each stolen kiss deepens their attraction and sends him spiraling closer and closer to the edge of his inherent dark desires. Desires that act as a homing beacon for the Dark Sidhe, who are intent on forcing him to fight on their side.

The longer he lingers in her arms and in her bed the closer his enemies get to her door. And the greater the risk that the gateway to the Faerie Realm will shift, destroying not only his power to protect her, but his very life.

Warning: Contains enchantments, danger, some very scary monsters, a trip to the dark side and hot, soul-transforming sex with an immortal prince.

Read an excerpt online.

Soul Fire comes out on July 7th, 2009.

Originally published at R. F. Long.

Sadly I didn't make the Gaiman signing last night - I wimped out due to a combination of the disaster that is Dublin traffic in rush hour (which now appears to start at 4pm) and my innate inability to stay upright and conscious in large crowds. When I found out how busy it was at 4.20 (thanks for the headsup irishkate - we will meet up on Friday!) I chickened out. I know. Wimp!

Instead we went to Ragazzi in Dalkey, had a most excellent dinner and watched my 4yo daughter flirt with the Italian waiters with frightening efficiency.

It sounds like everyone had a ball in Chapters though and I am still slightly jealous.

After dinner we went home and I did ALL the edits for Soul Fire because we thought the digital box was on the fritz again. After a long and fairly agonising phonecall of complaint that went absolutely NOWHERE (yeah, surprise, right?) we gave up. (And found out this morning that a cable had been knocked out of the back of the box. Ahem. Anyway, moving on...)

I worked, ewh sorted papers and then, to my surprise, I was FINISHED! So I sent it back to the wonder-editor!

It was back to me this morning for FLEs and apparently my new name is Speedy Gonzales!  So I will get on to the FLEs this evening. Did have great fun with a pronunciation guide though, and the need to point out that when pronouncing Irish names it depends where you come from so Ulster Irish and Munster Irish can sound like different languages (well, almost) and I only speak School Irish. And not for almost twenty years at that).

I also found one of the best Wolf pictures EVER!


Becuase we all need a wolf every now and then for backup.

Just a quick post today.

Looks like I am going to be a bit swamped in the coming days.

I have crits which I am about to turn my attention to once I finish faffing about on the internet.

I'm in the middle of a short story which yesterday turned from a paranormal to the contemporary it actually wanted to be. Which is good because the market apparently prefers contemporaries at the moment. Many thanks to crystaljordan for the brainstorming! :) So I'm rewriting it.

In the mean time my edits for Soul Fire (To Regain Heaven that was) arrived. Among other things I have to either find a way to make Aoife easily pronouncible for an American reader or find another suitible name from Irish legends which is (that isn't Morrigan and Emer as I'm already using them). This particular Aoife is a villain. Any suggestions? :)

And sadly, we had a death in the family so I will probably be travelling to the UK at the end of next week. No dates as yet. Work, writing and renaming ancient Irish sorceresses will have to fall in around that.

Today I am back to work, which is lovely. In my absence almost all the work has been done on the new case for the rare books - all the dusty, woodshavingy, banging part of the process - which leaves me to over see the final stages - gap filling, shelf spacing. For this I am happy. Soon all our rare books will have a new, safe, visible home. This is a good thing because contrary to popular opinion rare books like to be seen. They like to show off. "Look at me, I'm from the 15th century", "Yeah? Well I've got copperplates depicting the garb of the priesthood in the time of the first temple", *another book arrives* "What do you think of my original maroon morrocan cover?" *First books shuffle off grumbling and casting glares over their shoulders*

Sorry, own little world there for a moment.

My point, if indeed I had one, is that if books are locked away, never handled or examined, nasty things happen to them. They turn bad and plot to take over the earth. Things like mould, and damp and bookworm. Ever seen what bookworm does?



Or you could try


Bookworm is bad. There are many other bad things that can happen to a book, many of which can be resolved, but a basic rule of thumb is when something is eaten, you aint getting it back.

So the rules for today is: new bookcase good, bookworm bad.

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peadarog had a very interesting post here about the relation of genre and literature which on the whole I agree with. I'd go so far as to sum it up as Genre excites, Literature resonates, hense the two are not incompatible. Does this mean literature is more about language than story? In some cases definitely. I still find it amusing that people like Shakespeare and Dickens, held as an inviolate part of the canon of the literary school, would have been the genre writers of their day. That they happened to write beautifully was an aside. What they wrote was largely disposable fiction. Makes you think, huh?

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I also noticed in Dunnes Stores yesterday a large number of mummies with their seasonal shopping club vouchures running amok because they did not have children (for they are back at school), buying all the things they couldn't get near for the whole summer holidays. Like lampshades, vases, female clothes, shoes... I was among them. Two new lampshades, which then unfortunately translated into a trip for e_w_h to Woodies later that evening to buy new lightfittings as those in place were falling apart. Oh little details. Don't bother me with details. Can't you see I'm shopping? Without children?!

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So that's about it for random meanderings today. I should have edits on The Penitent shortly, and some more blurb work. I wrote some more of The Wolf's Mate last night and I subbed again To Regain Heaven yesterday. (I hate it when novels just sit there on your hard drive, doing nothing but distracting me.) I have a pite of crits. I will get to them. I promise. *sigh*

So, I have been working on the requested rewrite of The Penitent pretty much entirely since I got it. I am, according to my wordcounter 67% through it at page 180 of 268 (this is not in double spaced courier 12 point so don't fret the page count). The novel is inadvertantly getting longer, but as I am meant to be clarifying some thins and getting deeper into POV that's probably good.

Speaking of "getting deeper into POV" anyone got a magic wand for that? It's coming. I think. But then I tend to worry that I thought that the last time so around maybe I'm not getting there this time either?

We've a full week at work. There's a kind of conference on here. I put together an exhibition this morning of one book from each century from the library collection, of which I am very proud. The books date from 1499-2007 and it looks wonderful. I also focused on the bindings when writing them up as they are very interesting - morroccan, alum tawed (pigskin), vellum, wood etc. Its amazing how plain and unadorned they are up to the 1600s. Then all hell breaks loose. The one from 1617 looks ike someone went mad with an embossing tool!

So while my head is stuck in the world of The Penitent, my body is dealing with rare books and the many visitors who arrive in the breaks between meetings.

To quote my favourite Dylan (the rabbit) "It's, like, exhausting man."g

Oh and I queried another agent. So far its very quiet.

I've finished the final edit on To Regain Heaven. I have it out with a couple of readers so I will wait to hear from them. Then I'll reprint (God help the environment). I still have to get the 1-2 page synopsis sorted.

Hate them.

But anyways... maybe not tomorrow morning. Tuesday or Wednesday.

Hopefully tomorrow I can tell you all my other news. It's killing me...

YAY!
She asked for a full. Used phrases like "unique premise" and "original setting"!!!

Oh Yes!

"Requested material" on the front of the envelope!

*dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy*

So after celebrating tonight I have to go through the ms with a fine toothcomb and get my synopsis down to 1-2 pages.

But meanwhile... there's a Butter Chicken Masala and a bottle of birthday wine with EWH's & my name on it.

*dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy dance of joy*

R

I've got an online editor pitch next week!

Eek!

And squee!

And EEK!

I've finished the first pass edit - 62,576 words. So I need to add a hell of a lot more which is a bit disappointing. But at least I have something to work with. I've put out a call for beta readers to see what I can do with it. I'll probably still fiddle with it over the next couple of days but I think I could do with a bit of a rest right now.

EWH is reading over my shoulder! We're meant to be watching In the Shadow of the Moon . Nice to be able to type without looking at the keys. We have just realised we have only four degress of Kevin Bacon which is most exciting. Seriously though, if you haven't seen this film, get it. It's wonderful.

Two and a half chapters done, two to go.
To Regain Heaven now stands at 60,654 which leaves me still 9346 short of my target. I edited two chapters last night, 17 and 18, adding 657 and 488 words respectively. I also finished off 16, adding a total of 956 words over the last couple of days.

I should explain that when writing the first draft (long hand) I left lots of scenes very loose, with place holders for expansion. When Typing the thing into the laptop, I didn't do a whole load of that (although I did some). So now I have to do the rest. Then I'm going to print the whole thing out. Half is already in the hands of EWH. When he is done with it, I will sit down with a red pen. Then comes layering and foreshadowing, also known as R tries to pull it all together and make it cohesive!

I only have two chapters left. I'm right up to the final confrontation. Feels weird.

Actually what probably makes the weirdness happen is that I am off to a funeral in about half and hour and that usually does it.

In house news, we almost have shelves. Or we have almost shelves. (They're together, they're up, there's only one shelf in them, they aren't fixed to the wall yet so we can't use them = almost shelves). Since we moved house nearly two years ago and all (ALL) my books have been in boxes since then, this is a very big thing. (alright, not all, I am a librarian, books gravitate towards me and they hate nothing more than being boxed.)

(btw, if any new friends want to say hello, that would be cool!  :D)