Help an indie author out…

Hey y’all! Greet­ings from Dal­las, Texas as I write this (I am on an epic road trip — yes for work — and will be post­ing about that soon). I would love it if you could vote for me in the 2012 GoodReads Awards for Best Hor­ror for ON DEMON WINGS.

Can you imag­ine my sur­prise when I was told today that I was nom­i­nated? I mean, what the fuck­ing fuck? I’m not being weirdly hum­ble or any­thing, but I seri­ously am a wee lit­tle indie author. NO ONE KNOWS WHO I AM. Hell, three of the big six pub­lish­ers turned down my series in the past month due to the lack of romance and “saleabil­ity” (crush­ing my wee lit­tle soul and hopes and dreams) and I’ve had to push back my sixth book in a series that I feel is the red-headed stepchild of the pub­lish­ing industry.

PEOPLE, it’s not been a fun ride in Karina Halle’s writ­ing world, let me tell you that much. Rejec­tion sucks, and it sucks more when you have some fans because you’re like…well, THESE peo­ple like the books, don’t you think the rest of the world will? They like it and they’re awe­some peo­ple, isn’t the world full of like-minded folks? And the answer is…NO. They won’t. Accord­ing to the way the indus­try is and what is sell­ing. Not because I’m being dra­matic. But because I know the nature of the game. The way sales are made.

My books are weird lit­tle beasts that don’t fit into any moth­er­fuck­ing mold. But that’s the way they have to be and I’m stick­ing to my moth­er­fuck­ing guns by let­ting Dex and Perry live out their lives and rela­tion­ships the way I intended. Doesn’t mean I don’t feel insanely shitty when I see every indie book rise up the charts but that’s life and that’s what I get for being so damn…I don’t know…Dex-like ;)

I’m not say­ing all this to com­plain, though it’s been weigh­ing on me for weeks and weeks. But that’s me and my personality…I’m a sen­si­tive, per­fec­tion­ist soul. But I am say­ing this to say OMG I have been nom­i­nated for a  GoodReads Award! Do you know what this MEANS to me? It means a fuck­ing lot. Sorry for swear­ing so much, but this is one of those cases where nor­mal words don’t work. This is INSANE!!!!!!!

I mean, I tear up think­ing about it. Peo­ple, I rarely cry and I’m almost bawl­ing over this!

Accord­ing to Goodreads, “This is a tremen­dous achieve­ment as the Goodreads Choice Awards are the only major book awards cho­sen by read­ers.” AND “Instead of con­sult­ing pub­lish­ing experts or a judg­ing panel, we look to read­ers to find the best books of the year. We ana­lyze sta­tis­tics from the 170 mil­lion books added, rated, and reviewed on the site in 2012 and nom­i­nate based on a book’s num­ber of rat­ings and aver­age rat­ing. So a nom­i­na­tion is truly an honor because it comes straight from the readers!”

HOLY HELL! So, man, I am so fuck­ing hum­bled this hap­pened. I am so fuck­ing happy and I truly, TRULY feel hon­ored. Thank you, thank you, and THANK YOU. You have no idea how much I needed this news, to make me feel like I should con­tinue writ­ing and that some peo­ple really, truly do care.

SO, what can you do to make this event even brighter? Well vote HEREhttp://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-horror-books-2012

If I make it to the semi-finals, I will write a scene that is fan-chosen. That’s right. Fans will chose what Exper­i­ment in Ter­ror scene I write.…this could be any­thing, includ­ing Dex and Perry goes to Tar­get or a cer­tain ON DEMON WINGS scene from Dex’s POV (you all know what I mean, I heard your cries of protest) or what­ever! So, if you’re an EIT fan or you just like me as a per­son and think my books suck ass, help me out with a vote. I would LOVE On Demon Wings to win Best Hor­ror 2012 :)

Interviews! Snippets!

That’s me above ^^ I did an inter­view with Lemon­ade Mag­a­zine. You can read the rest of here (just have to flip through a cou­ple of vir­tual pages: http://www.lemonademagazine.net/#!__magazine )

OH right and since today was the orig­i­nal release day of Into the Hol­low (now pushed back till Novem­ber 13th/15th ten­ta­tively — and here is the orig­i­nal blog post about that deci­sion), I thought I’d treat you all to:

 

 

 

Into the Hol­low — A snip­pet #5 (UNEDITED)

He closed his eyes, brow fur­rowed in some inter­nal pain. I stroked the side of his face with my fin­gers, feel­ing the solid­ness of his cheek­bones, the ever-present scratch of his facial hair, rough and hard under my touch. I hoped it was calm­ing him as much as it was calm­ing me.

Who, Dex?” I repeated. I smoothed the skin under his eyes with my thumb until he finally looked back at me. They were wet with tears. See­ing that drained my soul out of me and onto the floor. I didn’t know if I wanted to know any­more, about some­one worse than Abby. Some­one that could reduce a strong man to this. I could feel his fragility in my hands, like I was hold­ing eggshells.

His lips moved and a puff of air and words came out, words I couldn’t under­stand. I moved my face closer to his and brushed his lips with mine. The room seemed to vibrate but maybe it was the beat­ing of my heart.

Please tell me,” I whis­pered into his mouth.

His eye­lids low­ered as he gazed at me. “I don’t want you to know. I can’t…” he paused and licked his lips and his tongue inevitably caught the inner rim of mine. It took every­thing I had inside to not go fur­ther with it. My chest heaved with the breath I was try­ing to control.

As scared as I was, as curi­ous as I was, I didn’t want to upset him fur­ther. Not tonight.

It’s all right,” I told him softly, my lips bump­ing against his as I spoke. “Just tell me how to help.”

Let me stay with you,” he asked gen­tly. “Let me sleep with you.”

There was no hint of seduc­tive­ness in his voice, though his heavy eyes and parted lips sug­gested otherwise.

The ques­tion must have been on my face because he con­tin­ued, smooth and gen­tle, “Just like this. I need you tonight, just like this. Please.”

 

 

AND THAT’S ALL FOLKS! I’m just about to board a plane for New Orleans. Going to the Voodoo Music Fes­ti­val do work as a pho­tog­ra­pher for Con­se­quence of Sound and doing some voodoo/Louisiana research for book #7 Come Alive. Then I’m head­ing to Texas on a road­trip to see Tom­a­hawk. I’ll be gone for 10 days but I’ll try and keep in touch though!

Into the Hollow — Snippet #4

This is more of an excerpt than a snip­pet, but as promised, it’s on the creepy side of things for once. Now, who wants to go stay in a cabin in the woods?

 

 

Into the Hol­low — Snip­pet #4 — UNEDITED

 

 

Keep scrolling.…

 

 

No real spoil­ers here, in case you were worried.

 

Tada:

 

Rigby took in a deep breath and exhaled until his han­dle­bar mus­tache wig­gled up and down. “Well, that takes me back a few years to be hon­est. That’s when I first saw The Beast. That’s what I tend to call it. Unlike my daugh­ter, I can­not be sure what the crea­ture is. But it is a beast. Oh yes, a ter­ri­ble beast.”

He paused to have a sip of his drink and I found myself lean­ing for­ward in antic­i­pa­tion. I adjusted my grip and kept the cam­era focused on his face.

The first time I saw The Beast was right here in this cabin. It was in the fall and the first snows had come. The first snows here always come like a feather. Very light, very beau­ti­ful. And damn cold. I didn’t have enough wood in the shed out back to keep the fire­place going at full blast, so I spent the night in front of the fire, wrapped in my sleep­ing bag.”

My eyes went to the fire­place and I imag­ined the scene. There was no way I could stay in this cabin alone.

I must have drifted off,” he went on, his eyes becom­ing wide at the rec­ol­lec­tion. “Because I was sud­denly aware of a sound. It started off far away, like my ears were blocked. Then I heard it more clearly. It was the sound of the door han­dle going up and down. Up. And down.”

The skin at the back of my neck tight­ened and I resisted the urge to turn around and look at the door. I needed to keep film­ing them, even though it felt like this dark, heavy sub­ject was loom­ing behind me.

I was fac­ing the fire at the time and it had died down to the point where it wasn’t as bright. I turned around and looked. I wasn’t really afraid, just curi­ous as all hell. What was there to be afraid of? Bears don’t usu­ally try the doorhan­dle when they’re try­ing to break in.”

Then what hap­pened?” Dex asked, plac­ing his empty glass of Bour­bon on the table behind him. Like magic, Christina had Mick’s bot­tle and refilled his glass in seconds.

Rigby stroked at his mus­tache, his eyes on the door, lost in the moment. “Some­thing I can’t for­get, that’s for sure. Even now, I remem­ber this as well as the day Christina was born. I saw the door han­dle go up and down, like some­one was stand­ing out­side, try­ing to get in. But get in as silently as pos­si­ble. But, you see, I had locked the door. It was windy that night and the latch back then was rot­ted, so I put the dead­bolt on it. And I was glad I did. I only had that dead­bolt so that guests would feel secure dur­ing their stay, even though there are no wild moun­tain men roam­ing the woods. But at that moment I thought maybe there were crazy moun­tain men out there, look­ing for a warm place to hide.”

He paused, tak­ing a deep breath. “Think­ing that, my first instinct was to go for my rifle. So I got to my feet, and believe me I was care­ful not to make a sound. It was freez­ing in this cabin with the fire so low and I remem­ber how cold the gun felt in my fin­gers. But in the moment I grabbed the gun, the noise stopped. I looked and the han­dle was still. I may have shit my pants, because I’m telling ya, I was sure that if the per­son wasn’t at the door, they were at the win­dow. And watch­ing me. Just look around now. Can you see out with the glare of the fire­place bounc­ing back at you?”

Dex turned his head and looked behind him. As he did so, he gave me a nod. I took the cam­era off of them and aimed it at the win­dow behind Christina and Mick. Rigby was right. All you could see at the win­dow was the hazy, flick­er­ing reflec­tion of every­thing inside. Some­one could have been look­ing at us right then and there was no way we could have seen them.

So,” Rigby started and I brought the cam­era back to his face, “I froze and tried to fig­ure out what to do next. They couldn’t get in and I had a gun, so I fig­ured I was at an advan­tage. Then I remem­bered the win­dows in the bed­room. They aren’t that high above the ground and are easy to break.”

Oh great. He was basi­cally explain­ing how fucked we were in the cabin if any­thing were to hap­pen to us.

I went back there to check. It was eas­ier to see out since the light didn’t reach in the bed­rooms. I looked out­side but didn’t see any­thing. At first. Then the moon came out of a cloud and illu­mi­nated the snow. I saw prints out in it. Very large prints that hadn’t been snowed in. Fresh. Then…”

I could feel the heav­i­ness in the air, like every­one in the room was antic­i­pat­ing his next words.

 

Into the Hollow — Snippet #3

This is  a short one folks — and not very spoi­lerific at all, so you don’t need to be caught up in the series to read it :)

 

See­ing as this is a cute one, I’ll have a scary snip­pet for you this weekend!

 

Into the Hol­low — Snip­pet #3

 

His eyes shone play­fully, turn­ing his irises a deep cocoa. “That’s why I like you, you’re a challenge.”

I folded my arms and leaned back on one leg. “Oh, so that’s why…”

Well, that and your ass.”

My cheeks flamed. “Thanks.”

And your breasts.”

Got it.”

And what’s between your-”

Dex,” I warned, cut­ting him off.

He grinned and stepped toward me. He took his hand out of his pocket and ran his fin­ger down the length of my nose. “What’s between your gor­geous eyes…your cute lit­tle nose.”

I tried not to flinch, know­ing I had pow­dered my nose that morning.

I have a vague rec­ol­lec­tion of you com­par­ing me to a sexy bunny once,” I mum­bled, scrunch­ing it up.

He raised his brows in mock sur­prise. “Did I say that?  Boy, I sure am a charmer some­times, it’s a won­der I even used to get laid. Must have been the big dick.”

I glared at him. “You think way too much of your dick.”

So do you,” he replied with a smile. And god damn it, I wished I hadn’t been star­ing at his crotch right then.

 

Into the Hollow– A snippet #2

Good morn­ing lovelies!

I thought I’d share with you some of the stuff I’ve been writ­ing. *wig­gles fingers*

If you haven’t read any up to On Demon Wings, I would refrain from read­ing below. It’s not a huge spoiler or any­thing but, you know, mys­tery is good. Very good.

So…don’t read on! lol

If you don’t want Into the Hol­low to be spoiled for you — also refrain from read­ing on. I admire your willpower. I am actu­ally one of those peo­ple who won’t read the “excerpts” of future books that are included at the end of books. At least, I didn’t do that with the Fever Series, but that’s prob­a­bly because I had all the books at my ready. Speak­ing of, how stoked for Iced am I??? Pretty stoked! I am so happy I dis­cov­ered the Fever Series this sum­mer after so many read­ers were rav­ing about it and even hap­pier to know it’s not all over.

 

Any­hoo, off track…

 

*cough* poten­tial SPOILERS com­ing *cough*

 

 

 

 

With­out fur­ther ado, here is another Into the Hol­low snip­pet (unedited, of course):

 

 

 

 

 

I shot Paul an apolo­getic look and ran after Dex, out of the store and onto the frigid street.

“Hey,” I said, pulling on his coat for him to stop.

He turned and cocked his head. “Yes?”

“What was that about?”

“What? Oh right, here’s your beer.”

Dex shoved the cold jug into my hands. Then he undid Fat Rabbit’s leash and handed that to me too.

“No,” I said, try­ing to jug­gle the items. “The cockblocking.”

He burst out laugh­ing, his brows raised as he looked at me. “Cock­block­ing? What? You have a cock now?”

I stamped my foot. “No, Paul. He was flirt­ing with me and you totally shot him down.”

His chin low­ered and pulled back against his neck. “I don’t even know what you’re talk­ing about. You were just chat­ting, from what I saw.”

“He was flirt­ing and you know it. You wanted to make it look like we were together.”

“Why would I do a thing like that?”

“Because you’re a jerk.” I said the first thing that came to mind.

He looked around him, as if for backup. “Wow. Maybe we should add a no name-calling clause to the house rules.”

“Enough with the damn rules already.”

“Hey,” he growled, com­ing right up to me, chest against mine. “If it weren’t for those damn rules, we’d already be hav­ing dirty sex all over that apartment.”

Whoa. Whoa.

Either it was the words “dirty sex” or the way he was look­ing down at me so intensely, or the fact that he might have been telling the truth or how damn con­fi­dent he sounded, I was stunned and at a loss for words. My cheeks imme­di­ately flushed.

He kept his shin­ing, dark eyes on mine until I had to look away, while my brain strug­gled to come up with some­thing other than play­ing images of us hav­ing dirty sex together.

“That’s right,” he con­tin­ued, voice low and vel­vet smooth. “You know it’s true. I’m not say­ing I agree with the rules, but you know, you started them.”

I cleared my throat, find­ing my foot­ing. “And I’m glad I did. Man, you are way too con­fi­dent for some­one who keeps get­ting shot down.”

His eyes widened humor­ously. “Shot down? And who’s doing the shoot­ing, you?”

I opened my mouth then real­ized how ego­tis­ti­cal I would have sounded.

“No, you’re not shoot­ing me down, kiddo,” Dex went on. “Because I’m not really try­ing. When I do try, you’ll know it. And then you’ll throw the whole damn rule­book out the window.”

 

 

 

 

Working away

I’m happy to report that I’ve found my groove with Into the Hol­low. It’s gone from some­thing I must write to some­thing I need, want, crave to write. I love this obses­sive stage of the process and I love being with Dex and Perry again…even though, wow, these two…talk about sex­ual ten­sion over­load. And just plain ol’ ten­sion. If you find your­self yelling at them in your head, don’t worry, I am too. But don’t worry there’s a few nice payoffs…heh heh.

They just have a LOT of shit to work out. Not to men­tion being ter­ror­ized in the Cana­dian Rock­ies by an urban leg­end. OK, I’ll just come out and say it: Sasquatch.

Now that you’ve stopped laugh­ing, I’ll explain. When was the last time Sasquatch or Big­foot scared you? Exactly. Never. Here in Canada he’s known for steal­ing Koka­nee beer (although I think he killed The Ranger at some point and hav­ing your beer stolen is terrifying).

But I decided to take the con­cept of Sasquatch and turn it into some­thing truly ter­ri­fy­ing and even real­is­tic. This isn’t Harry and the Hendersons…this is more like those crea­tures in the movie The Descent. Eeeep.

I’ve even added a few quotes to Goodreads from the book — you can read them here: http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/19220748-into-the-hollow-experiment-in-terror-6

As I announced, the book should be out the week of the 13th but I am offi­cially choos­ing the 19th as the pub­li­ca­tion date just in case it goes a bit longer — then I don’t have to, once again, push it back. But hope­fully it will be released early. As soon as it’s all ready to go, I won’t hes­i­tate to let you know and put it out there.

I’m pretty excited about this one…to me, it’s a com­bi­na­tion of Dead Sky Morn­ing (camp­ing, BC, forests, iso­la­tion) and Lying Sea­son (sex, angst, con­flict, issues). A win­ning com­bi­na­tion (I hope).

Oh, and here’s some­thing I’ve been toy­ing with…I’ve always plot­ted out the books ahead of time, for the most part, and look­ing for­ward to book #8, it’s always been set to be about twice as long as a reg­u­lar book. Well, I might just split that book in two then.…that would make #9 books in the series. I won’t really make a deci­sion on this until I start work on book #7, Come Alive, but let­ting you know that it’s a possibility.

My friend Amanda came up with the genius idea of split­ting the title of book #8.…so

Book #8 — Ashes…

Book #9 — …To Ashes.

Or Book #8 — Ashes to Ashes

Book #9 — Dust to Dust

I kind of like that.  Stay tuned!

Into the Hollow — a snippet

First off, I want to thank you all for being sup­port­ive. It really means a lot, espe­cially now as I nav­i­gate through some soul-crushing stuff.

Hey. Here’s a thank you — a small excerpt of Into the Hollow:

 

If Dex wasn’t tense before, he was now. I was ready for him to flip around and go after Max­imus again, but he didn’t bite. He just kept his mouth shut and picked up the first box. He turned and I could see the tem­per swirling around in his eyes, the killer grip on the box’s edge. He gave Max­imus a forced smile that looked com­pletely menacing.

Please move,” he said, ges­tur­ing to the way he was block­ing the door. “I’d like to get out of here before I break your nose.”

I’d like to see you do it,” Max­imus answered, not moving.

Oh, come on,” I chided them. “You can mea­sure penises after I move out.”

You don’t think I can do it?” Dex con­tin­ued, ignor­ing me.

I know you can do it. I just want to see it.”

I’ve done it before.”

I want to see you do it…now,” Max­imus replied. I didn’t like the squir­rely way he sounded, like he was attempt­ing to do Dex a favor or something.

Dex,” I said loudly. He and Max­imus were locked in some inter­nal show­down, brown eyes against green, short against tall, cave­man against caveman.

Dex!”

With great reluc­tance, he broke the star­ing con­test and looked my way.

Please. Let’s go.”

He nod­ded and read­justed his hold on the box.

I glared at Max­imus. “And you, please get out of the way. I, per­son­ally, have no prob­lems with break­ing your nose.”

I have some bad news…

It’s not ter­ri­ble news…I mean, it’s not the worst news. Because, as you will find out very soon, this could be a LOT worse. But it’s bound to anger a lot of my read­ers out there.

I apol­o­gize but the release of Into the Hol­low is being delayed, hope­fully less than a month. I am now shoot­ing for a Novem­ber 13th release date — or some time that week.

There’s been some major life changes going on in my life over the last few months, tak­ing me out of my writ­ing mind-frame. Find­ing the time and the mind­set to write has been chal­leng­ing. I’ve also been unable to find the right edi­tor for this (the ones I love are booked up or I didn’t give them enough time…and NOW hope­fully I can!). AND, this is a big AND, I do NOT want to rush this book. I enjoy spend­ing time with Perry and Dex as much as the next per­son and I cer­tainly don’t wish to turn out an infe­rior book.

I know this comes as an annoy­ance and a let­down to, say, 100% of EIT read­ers (espe­cially being two weeks away) and again, I apol­o­gize. As sadis­tic as you may think I am, I really don’t like to keep peo­ple waiting…hence why I released Old Blood and The Dex-Files.…I wanted to give you SOMETHING.

BUT life some­times gets in the way and I’m deal­ing with a few health issues, as well as sell­ing my apart­ment, mov­ing to an island, buy­ing a busi­ness, pro­mot­ing my books, trav­el­ing for work…and other stuff that isn’t bad by any means, but it’s major and it has warped my brain more than a bit. Being an indie author is really, really hard work. It’s a one-woman busi­ness that can very quickly wear you down.

I thank you for your begrudg­ing under­stand­ing and hope I can make it up to you with an awe­some book in Novem­ber and maybe some fun stuff before then.

It’s Halloween and EIT is ON SALE for $0.99

Seems like the fall is an awe­some time to hold a sale, no? I know I’ve been snap­ping up some good deals in this amaz­ingly dry and hot Octo­ber (here in Van­cou­ver, any­way!) and now I’m pass­ing the joy on to you.

Also, it’s Thanks­giv­ing here in Canada, and boy am I grate­ful for my readers!

For the next week, all books in the Exper­i­ment in Ter­ror Series are just 99 cents each on Amazon.

CAN YOU IMAGINE BETTER READS FOR HALLOWEEEN? I can’t!!

Start with Red Fox for 99 cents: http://www.amazon.com/Red-Fox-Experiment-Terror-ebook/dp/B0055PJFA6/ref=tmm_kin_title_0

NOW is the time to snap these books up before the prices go up…and also isn’t it nice to get in on an indie phe­nom­e­non while you can? Not that I think I’m an indie phe­nom­e­non but…watch this space :)

SO SPREAD THE WORD!!

OH and for those ask­ing me about EIT mer­chan­dise, you can order  SOME stuff through the Red­bub­ble store — yes it is pricey, as peo­ple have pointed out, but that is hon­estly the low­est the store will let me set them…I don’t make any roy­al­ties on those things (like 35 cents) and the rea­son is SO I can keep the costs down for YOU! That’s also what I do for my paper­backs. I do try and price them low so that every­one can afford them, even if it means that I don’t make any­thing on roy­al­ties. It’s silly that I have to defend myself here over pric­ing but I just don’t want you all to think I’m some price-gouger. FUCK Dark­house is a free book…so, no, if I could do every­thing as cheaply as pos­si­ble, I would.

Red­bub­ble store: http://www.redbubble.com/people/perrypalomino/works/8975546-eit-logo-white

Ama­zon Paper­backs: http://www.amazon.com/Darkhouse-Karina-Halle/dp/1461079853/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y

 

 

WINNERS!!! And Drinking Season :)

Isn’t this the best cal­en­dar EVER. I freak­ing LOVE the ladies at For­ever Young Adult and was hon­ored by their choice of LYING SEASON (EIT #4) for their Octo­ber Cal­en­dar. This is now my desk­top AND I’m print­ing it out…and awwww, Drink­ing Sea­son, it’s just so per­fect :) http://foreveryoungadult.com/2012/10/01/the-official-fya-october-2012-calendar/ CLICK to print and view!!!

OH RIGHT! Win­ners of the EIT Swag Pack Giveaway!

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the three win­ners of the EIT Swag Pack: Les­ley Peck, Sta­cie Encinias and Mau­reen (not sure of last name but you found EIT thru Maryse). ALSO I drew two more names for a spe­cial, sec­ondary secret prize pack — those win­ners are Chris­tine Angell Kaminoff and Krista Fos­ter — I WILL BE SENDING ALL THE WINNERS EMAILS :)

Thank you every­one for play­ing. It was amaz­ing to see how you all dis­cov­ered EIT. And yes, Maryse is get­ting her own spe­cial prize pack, as is Jenny at FYA :)