So, here it is. You choose the scene. I’ll write it. I’ll post it on my blog before Xmas…maybe even around my birth­day (Dec 11th)

I’ll keep this poll run­ning until Dec 1st.

OH, I was finally lucky enough to get invited to an Author Event — Megan from the Book Asy­lum was so gra­cious to extend the invi­ta­tion to me (I’m still freak­ing out over it). Details are still com­ing, but it will be in Boston around St. Patrick’s Day (March 17). Not only will I be there, but so will big­ger authors like Jes­sica Park, Amy Bar­tol, CJ Roberts, Rebecca Dono­van, Tar­ryn Fisher, Tara Sivec, Amber Lynn Natusch, as well as a bunch of other authors whom I’ll develop an even greater infe­ri­or­ity com­plex from.

I’d love to see you. I don’t want to drink alone!

Not only did I release Into the Hol­low (which got to #128 on the Ama­zon Best Sell­ers list…nowhere near the Top 100 I wanted/wished for but it was pretty close) and you all left such stel­lar, enthu­si­as­tic reviews that made me want to cry (and I hate to cry), but.…

I moved out of my stu­dio apart­ment where I lived down­town in the city of Van­cou­ver for six and a half years and to an island. Salt Spring Island (close to D’Arcy Island haha). I’m now an islander, and my man and I have our cozy cottage!

There are deer every­where (photo taken from the bath­room win­dow downstairs)!

On Demon Wings got into the FINALS for the Best Hor­ror of 2012 from the GoodReads Awards! YOU CAN STILL VOTE - maybe I can win this thing?!

I announced I was releas­ing THIS book on Valentine’s Day

Ah, hell, let’s throw the cover in here too

I’m putting together a poll where YOU can all vote on what exclu­sive Perry and Dex scene you want me to write — for free — and I’ll release it around Xmas.

And Into the Hol­low made it to the #4 Best Sell­ing book on Smash­words! It’s the short­bus of best­sellers lists but, meh, I’ll take it!

OH and this is old news — three weeks old now — but in case you missed it, I dressed up as “Red Fox” and “Perry Palomino” for Hal­loween

Into the Hol­low is now live on Ama­zon Kin­dle and Smash­words. Paper­back com­ing in Decem­ber. Nook and Kobo will prob­a­bly get it around then too, THAT’S THE WAY THEY WORK — SLOW. But if you don’t want to wait weeks and weeks, get your epub copy from Smash­words today.

Ama­zon link: http://www.amazon.com/Into-Hollow-Experiment-Terror-ebook/dp/B00A6VTQH6/ref=sr_1_12?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1352860024&sr=1–12&keywords=into+the+hollow

Smash­words link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/254394

This is how I feel:

Oblig­a­tory ‘Vote On Demon Wings for Best Hor­ror of 2012 and I’ll release a Dex Files novella’ plug: http://www.goodreads.com/award/choice/2012#74609-Best-Horror

To cel­e­brate The Devil’s Metal being on sale for 99 cents, I thought I’d share with you a poster that my cover artist Bret Tay­lor cre­ated for the band, Hybrid. It took a long time and was a true back and forth effort as I tweaked the char­ac­ters to what I needed them to look like.

I was going for that hand-drawn 70’s qual­ity that you found on many posters in the day. Bret came up with the won­der­ful logo and trippy ass background.

I’ve also got the Hybrid Molten Uni­verse album cov­ers too. I was going to release sound­tracks as a give­away and stick them in the pack­ages, but there wasn’t much inter­est in The Devil’s Metal as I had thought. BUT I may still do some­thing with them if the book takes off at some point or maybe around the time I release the sequel.

Any­way, here it is — the album design was totally based on Sage’s tat­toos

So, by now you’ve heard that On Demon Wings was nom­i­nated for the GoodReads 2012 Best Hor­ror Award. And you know that I’m up against some pretty heavy com­pe­ti­tion in that category…most of the books are big names from big pub­lish­ers (which is why in my case, unlike most Acad­emy Award nom­i­na­tions, it actu­ally IS an honor to be nom­i­nated). You’ve also heard that if I make it to the finals, I will be releas­ing a spe­cial EIT scene for free, just as a thank you (oh and as vot­ing incen­tive, let’s not kid our­selves here).

(vote HERE)

Here’s the deal. The Semi-Finals for the award begin on the 12th, so I have to make it through the first round before ANY of this can happen.

Three Chances to Vote!

Open­ing Round: Octo­ber 30 – Novem­ber 11
Semi­fi­nal Round: Novem­ber 12 – Novem­ber 18
Final Round: Novem­ber 19 – Novem­ber 27

Then the finals begin on Novem­ber 19th. Which means that’s when I’ll find out if I’ve made it to the end. And if I do, I will not only release the free scene.…

.…I’ll release a novella! I’d love to do a free novella, unfor­tu­nately now that I write for a liv­ing, I can’t do that. Time spent writ­ing has to be able to put food on my table.

But it’s a novella you WILL love. It may mean Ada’s novella is get­ting pushed out of the way by a few months but that’s cool, right? BECAUSE…

The novella will be The Dex-Files Part Two. OR as it will be titled: And With Mad­ness Comes the Light.

It will be a novella told from Dex’s POV and unlike the Dex-Files, it won’t be a col­lec­tion of scenes. It will explain from that last moment in Lying Sea­son, until the end of On Demon Wings, what was going on with Dex. His story of the months spent away from Perry. And YES it will include “that scene” dur­ing the exor­cism that all of you were so anx­ious to read

So there you have it peo­ple. I have ideas flow­ing, my cover artist on speed dial, I’m just wait­ing for Novem­ber 19th.

Of course, I can’t do this alone. I need your votes! Get your friends to vote, your fam­ily, your dog, what­ever. Get me to the finals at least and you will get your newest Dex-Files book in Feb/March of 2013! And remem­ber, I’ll need your votes again once I make it to the semi-finals on Mon­day (which I hope­fully will!)

Again, here’s the vot­ing link: http://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-horror-books-2012#73801-Best-Horror

*dusts off hands*

Oh right, and in case you missed these tid­bits, Into the Hol­low is being released on Kin­dle and Smash­words on Novem­ber 15th for $3.99 (and for the last time, if you HAVE A NOOK you can DOWNLOAD FROM SMASHWORDS. It’s the same type of file, same price and you don’t have to wait MONTHS for Barnes and Noble to add it!!). Really hope you find that it’s worth the slight delay!

Also, The Devil’s Metal is just 99 cents on Ama­zon Kin­dle too: http://www.amazon.com/The-Devils-Metal-ebook/dp/B009EEOM4S/ref=pd_sim_kstore_6

(thanks again Heather for that Dex button!)

Want­ing, need­ing, crav­ing some Into the Hol­low news?

Well, to start off, how about you vote for On Demon Wings in the 2012 GoodReads Awards. It’s such a freak­ing honor to be nom­i­nated (and I’m against Dean Koontz, omg) that I’m glow­ing just from that. But hey, wouldn’t it be cool if my book actu­ally made it to the finals? I would be danc­ing on the moon!

So, what you need to do is go here and VOTE for On Demon Wings as the Best Hor­ror of 2012.

Many peo­ple have asked why the other books aren’t nom­i­nated, but ODW was the only full-length EIT book released in 2012. Dark­house — Lying Sea­son were all released last year, if you can believe it (yup, released 4 books in one year!).

Any­hoo, yes, vote and I’ll reward you with a scene. I’ll decide on three pos­si­ble scenes I could write for you. You vote on which one I should write. And I’ll release it on the web­site for free. BUT.…and this is a big butt (much like my own)…I need to get to the finals first. Even if I don’t win the award, if I am a final­ist, then you guys win the scene! Deal?

So if you’ve already voted, get your friends and fam­ily to vote! Get on GoodReads and get peo­ple excited! I think Dex and Perry deserve a wee bit of recog­ni­tion these days and I would be hon­ored if they could get it.

Once again, go HERE and pick On Demon Wings — one vote for that is a vote for all EIT books

OH and I’m not done here, not by a long shot. I finally have a release date for Into the Hol­low. Thurs­day, Novem­ber 15th, the book will be live on Ama­zon and Smash­words. Sorry, Nook and Kobo users, this may take months for you (take it up with B&N) but you can always get your epub copy from Smashwords.

OH and OH…OH OH!

Here’s a lit­tle teaser for you

INTO THE HOLLOW — A SNIPPET — UNEDITED

“Up you go, drunky,” he said affec­tion­ately. He grabbed my arms and pulled me up. My feet failed – I don’t know where they went – and I fell straight into his chest. Damn. I had for­got­ten how hard it was. He tight­ened his arms around me and, damn, I had for­got­ten how hard they were too.

I was stand­ing, no, lean­ing at angle, unwill­ing to help myself. I raised up my head so that my face was peer­ing at his, inches away, and smiled. “Thank you for catch­ing me.”

“Will you be OK?” Rigby asked Dex. Dex nod­ded with­out tak­ing his amused eyes off of mine.

“I’ve got her,” he said. I kept smiling.

He raised me up eas­ily and plunked me on my feet like he was stack­ing a chair. Then he put his arm around me, hold­ing me to him, and led me to our room.

“Good night,” he told the guys over his shoulder.

They mum­bled some­thing I couldn’t hear and soon I was in the pitch black bed­room. Dex let go of me to close the door and I began to sway to the side. Sud­denly he was there, strong hands on me again, and lead­ing me to the bed.

“Here, sit down,” he said plac­ing me on it. He began to take off my boots.

I didn’t want to sit up so I leaned back until I was flat on the bed. The room began to spin a bit.

“It’s dark in here and spinny,” I mut­tered as he removed one boot. “Sorry if my feet stink.”

“I’ve dealt with worse,” he said and quickly removed the other. I was left alone for a few sec­onds while he did some­thing in the cor­ner. Then light glowed behind my closed lids. I opened them. He had got­ten the kerosene lamp going.

His face appeared above me as he leaned over. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” I grinned. “Take off your shirt.”

He laughed. “Whoa, okay. You’re feel­ing fine, that’s for sure.”

“How about your pants?”

His smile twisted. “Oh Perry. You should be care­ful of what you ask of me.”

I reached up and grabbed his head and pulled him down toward me. My body was being pumped full of alco­hol and the adren­a­line of being scared ear­lier and the charged con­cept of sleep­ing with him. Of being naked with him. Of hav­ing sex in front of the fire­place. It swirled around in my veins, mak­ing me feel deli­ciously heavy inside and at the same time mak­ing me crave him, like I was a space that needed filling.

My fin­gers buried them­selves in his hair, wrap­ping around the thick strands and hold­ing on tight. I brought his anx­ious face down to mine and whis­pered, “You’re going to have to take my clothes off then.”

 

 

LAST BUT NOT LEAST = Because all EIT books were slashed to 99 cents last month, I’m doing the same for The Devil’s Metal this month on Ama­zon — or at last until Into the Hol­low is released. It’s only fair! So if you haven’t snatched up the book, get on it while you still can at this super duper low price! And remem­ber, The Devil’s Reprise (#2) comes out in March/April so you don’t have too long to wait to get more sexy Sage and Dawn times.

 

This is a post I should have done a few week­ends ago when it hap­pened but alas, trav­el­ing and writ­ing got in the way. Any­way, here it is!

SINCE I am doing the RT con­fer­ence in Kansas City next year (hope to see you all there!), I thought I would go for the local SIWC — Sur­rey Inter­na­tional Writer’s Con­fer­ence on Octo­ber 20th in a city quite close to my own. I fig­ured it would be the per­fect primer for this whole “writer’s con­fer­ence” thing and I wasn’t disappointed.

Yup, my first con­fer­ence and the first per­son I saw was my Twit­ter pal Lorna Suzuki, whose fan­tasy series Imalgo is pretty much in devel­op­ment for a major motion pic­ture. Got her — and the screen­writer — to sign my book.

And soon dis­cov­ered that my table­mate was Diana Gabaldon.

 

WHAT?

 

 

HOW IS THIS.….WHAT????

YES.

Nat­u­rally I played it cool (snort) and dis­cov­ered that Diana is one cool (and stun­ningly, del­i­cately beau­ti­ful) cat. She had lots of great writ­ing and pub­lish­ing advice (stick to your guns, write what you want, don’t worry if you can’t clas­sify your books because she can’t really clas­sify hers…) and we enjoyed many a glass of chardon­nay together (though she now owes my part­ner a drink).

It was only at the last minute that my part­ner and her got talk­ing about the MacKen­zie clan…he a MacKen­zie and she knowl­edgable about every­thing on earth.

Along the way, I met EIT read­ers Joy and Deanne who were awe­some to meet, really great peo­ple, as well as Amanda and Poonam (who are also great, lol). It was a great way to ease into the con­fer­ence lifestyle and wow.…if I ever have lines like Diana, I don’t know what I’d do ! Actu­ally it was really fun lis­ten­ing to each and every fan praise her and her work. Strangely hum­bling

As my first con­fer­ence and book sign­ing, I per­son­ally thought it was a suc­cess and can’t wait to do it again!

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 HERE: http://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

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!

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.