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Chapter One

A man and a demon walk into a bar…

“Well, will you look at that.”

Cam looked, and almost dropped the coffee carafe. Everyone had turned to stare at the towering, bronze-skinned man with black tribal markings etched into the left side of his face. Definitely not a common occurrence in Elberton, Georgia.

The demon that came in behind him? She’d seen plenty of those, unfortunately.

She forced herself to resume pouring Willie’s coffee. “I’d heard that a carnival was coming to town. Looks like it’s here.”

“Is he the strong man or the side show?”

“Those tattoos mean he’s Maori, from down by New Zealand way. Ain’t you ever seen Whale Rider?”

Willie frowned. “Is that some kind of interracial porno?”

Cam shook her head. “There are times when I’m glad you can’t contribute to the gene pool, and this is one of ‘em.” She returned the carafe to its warmer, then moved behind the counter to greet the new arrival. She stood an even six feet barefoot, but this guy had at least five inches on her. Man, they sure grow ‘em big Down Under. “Welcome to Cam’s Café.”

“Thanks.” His voice, a surprising tenor instead of a bass rumble, held just a bit of an accent. He slid onto a stool as she held her breath, but the seat took his weight. Her peripheral vision caught the demon sliding onto the stool to his left. “Seems like a nice place.”

“We do all right.” She reached beneath the counter for a menu, placed it in front of him. She so wasn’t getting out a menu for a demon. “You with the carnival, I guess?”

“Yes. We pulled in about an hour ago.” He picked up the menu with large hands covered in black swirling patterns, like a masculine version of lace. It made her wonder if his entire body was marked, but she was too polite to ask. Just like she wouldn’t ask if he knew he had a demon for a shadow. Sticking one’s nose into other folk’s business could get you killed, and Cam liked her life just fine.

“I don’t suppose you have hot tea?”

“I do. It’s the closest you’re going to get to unsweet tea around here. I got a bunch of different herbal kinds you can choose from.”

“Excellent. I’ll take tea and a cup of coffee, black. Oh and if you have tomato juice, I’d like a glass of that with a bottle of Tabasco sauce.”

Cam raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Did the guy know he had a demon—and was actually buying it a drink? If so, he was dangerous. Maybe the entire carnival had demons and humans who could not only see them, but wanted them around.

Big problem. She suppressed a shudder as she moved off to fill his drink order. Too many demons running free. Part of the reason she’d come to Elberton and stayed was because the town was full of honestly good people of different faiths, a mysterious tourist attraction called the Georgia Guidestones, and absolutely no demons. That had been two years ago. Just when she’d finally gotten past being “the outsider” and had made her café one of the main congregation spots, demons started appearing.

It was enough to make her wonder if she was the magnet that drew them.

But this? This clenches my stomach, and not in a good way:

Burnt Finger BBQ’s Bacon Explosion

That puppy is made with two pounds of bacon and two pounds of sausage, liberally interlaced with BBQ sauce and rub. My arteries scream just looking at it.

Pocket Books has signed a co-publishing agreement with Juno Books through which Juno will release one title per month under its own imprint. Founded in June 2006, Juno has developed a niche in contemporary fantasy novels and its authors include Carole Nelson Douglas, Stacia Kane and Sylvia Kelso. The first title to appear under the new deal is Amazon Ink set for a June release. Juno Books editor Paula Guran will oversee the line along with Pocket senior editor Jennifer Heddle.

You’re probably going, “Yeah. So?” Well, here’s the thing: Juno has offered me a contract on an urban fantasy series.

(crickets)

Hello. Is this thing on?

Yes, I have sold an urban fantasy series to Juno/Pocket! The first book is called SHADOWBLADE, and will be released in February 2010. Juno’s books are currently shelved in scifi/fantasy, so it looks like I’m changing neighborhoods too!

Cue the Jefferson’s theme song!

For a long time I lived in blissful ignorance, thinking the job done. True, I can sit where I want on a bus, drink from the water fountain, ostensibly live and play were I wish. But when interracial couples are still looked at as an oddity, when people claim they “can’t relate” to black people in love, when educated blacks are criticized for not being black enough, I have to wonder.

I think we have come a long way. But I say, as many others do, that there is a long way to go. Yes, today we have a man running for president who embodies much of the hope that Dr. King espoused. But it’s still sad that in this day and age, more than eight years into a new millennium, such a candidate is a remarkable event.

You can read a very compelling article about the sanitation workers strike that led up to King’s assassination here. This part stood out for me:

<blockquote>Soon after [the first riot], a new slogan appeared on the signs the black men carried. Four words, but they were provocative. Four words, but in that time and place, they were incendiary. Four words, but they managed to encapsulate at long last something black men had never quite been able to get America to understand.

Four words.

<strong>I AM A Man.</strong></blockquote>

My wish is the same wish that I write for my characters in my books: acceptance. We want the same things: life, love, success, happiness. You can have yours. Why can’t I have mine?

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) has blasted a new Indiana law that requires bookstores to register with the government if they sell what is considered “sexually explicit materials.” The new law, H.B. 1042, was signed by Governor Mitch Daniels on March 13, and calls for any bookseller that sells sexually explicit materials to register with the Secretary of State and provide a statement detailing the types of books to be sold. The Secretary of State must then identify those stores to local government officials and zoning boards. “Sexually explicit material” is defined as any product that is “harmful to minors” under existing law. There is a $250 registration fee. Failure to register is a misdemeanor.

Given the current heat level of everything but inspirational romance, even the local drugstore will have to register on the sex offender bookseller list.  (After all, it isn’t fair for the Borders to have to register and not Bob’s Drugstore.)  Or perhaps the store buyer will offer a questionnaire to publisher reps and distributors asking if a title has teh sex in it and having them sign a declaration stating that it doesn’t so that it could be sold.

Hhm,  maybe this will finally get all those clinches off the covers.

And snow again today. In Atlanta. After it was 65 degrees yesterday. It’s a sign of the Apocalypse, I tell ya.

Now I love Jet Li and Jackie Chan. And April 18th, I get to see them both in a movie, called The Forbidden Kingdom. Happy Spring for me!

PS: Speaking of spring, I’m blogging over at Blogging in Black today. Look for my post entitled “The Call of the New”. and comment if you can. I’ll be going on a writing vacation tomorrow (checking into a hotel for the weekend, coming out with an edit, a novella, and a couple of proposals, I hope. And a blog post for Divas of the Dark.) Here’s hoping your weekend is a happy and productive one!

To download a copy of the prologue, just follow this link.

Happy Reading!

Fortunately or unfortunately, my characters won’t let me. And I mean a lot of them. Maybe it’s the sickness, but I have characters from four separate stories all vying for attention. I sent off blurbs to my editor for the upcoming anthologies (you can check them out on my WIP page) one of which was a story I hadn’t even named the heroine for. But the story just popped into my head, clear as crystal and just as bright. I’m going to enjoy writing about Anaru and Cam. If you thought Dream of Shadows was dark, wait until you check out this premise for the anthology Carnivale Diabolique.

Right now, I’m finishing up IN WALKS TROUBLE, my story in the last of the Vegas Bites Trilogy. It was supposed to be very action oriented, but it looks instead like it’s going to be another angst-filled, character-driven tale. I hope people don’t mind, but I think my co-authors are well and truly able to deliver action.

When I get done with that, I’m going to immediately roll into RODE HARD, which is a sequel of sorts to my entry in my latest release, What White Boyz Want. Gina is sarcastic and funny and deserves her own story. Come on, her name is Regina Maria Lourdes Lieberman, and she’s a black Puerto Rican Jewish woman. She’s got to have a sense of humor.

And then, then I get to THE SHARPEST EDGE, which is my entry for Carnivale Diabolique. I really do enjoy writing novellas. I think they’re perfect for my Geminian short attention span nature.

By the way, those of you waiting for the sequel to DREAM OF SHADOWS, I need to offer my apologies. Between real-life issues and the current writing schedule, the sequel hasn’t been written yet and therefore won’t be out until late 2009 or early 2010. But the good news is that it will be A CURSE OF SHADOWS, chronicling the story of Nicole’s parents, the Romanian parapsychologist Stefan Antonescu and Arielle Legere, who became head of her family at 19. That means it will be an interracial paranormal historical romantic thriller. Confusing enough? Yeah, I’m a touch ambitious–or a glutton for punishment.

Apparently I’m sick in more ways than one.

Because I entered the paranormal category, I couldn’t judge that one, so I got a mix of a couple of others. Some were good, some were great, and some were okay. I read a variety of genres, so it’s not like I got a category I would never read in a million years even if all the other books were vaporized. (sob!)

But I got to thinking–I know, not a good thing–and really, this isn’t truly a reflection on the books I judged, but I miss the romance of romance books.

Now I know I’m sounding like an old fuddy-duddy, but here I go: I miss the days when you could pick up a book with romance on the spine and expect certain things: the genesis, development, and mostly maturation of a romantic relationship. Some hint of a happily-ever after. I don’t need a wedding at the end of the book, but I don’t want it to end with, “hey, let’s go for coffee,” or “You know, you’re pretty hot,” or “I think I like you,” or heaven forbid, the death of one of the principal characters.

I don’t care if there’s more than two people compiling the relationship. I don’t care if there’s hot monkey sex on page one (if it makes sense to the story, but that’s a post for another day.) Just make sure there’s a believable romantic relationship that has a clear-to-me happy ending by the time I close the book.

Is lurve and commitment too much to ask for in romance these days?