Chapter One
“Do you want to live?”
What the hell…? I focused on the brown hand thrust into my face, held onto it like a lifeline. Everything else around me was a scorched blur. My heart beat hard, and pain rode through my flesh. Did I want to live? Where was I? What had happened? Panic bubbled and words burst out. “What sort of insane question is that?” I choked, and agony shot over my skull.
“Make a choice.”
Painted PromiseReleases 18 August from Ellora’s Cave
You can read an excerpt here
Thirza Girard is a clone. Her mirror image founded a thousand year dynasty that spans the quadrant. The Girard family power is no accident. The original Thirza did a deal with an alien, a Tashen-Dar, who could manipulate probability. He changed reality so that Thirza and her descendants are favoured with opportunity, the chance, if they grab it, of achieving great wealth and power. However, it comes at a cost.
Paint – an organic technology – binds the alien, Zaid, in the bowels of the planet. Paint has captured him as an image for a thousand years. The time of binding is almost at an end and Thirza Girard’s clone must pay the price for the power her family has enjoyed. She must rebind him, capture him again in paint, or pay another, more carnal price.
Releases 24 August 2010 from Loose Id
You can read an excerpt here
Half dead under a heap of rubble, Leona Munro isn’t going to turn down that offer. Yet accepting, spins her life out of control. She is the Chosen and what that means no one will say
Thrown into the world of the magic she secretly craves, Leona must find the strength to survive. Too many people want to use what she is to their own advantage in the war between technology and magic. She can trust no one…least of all the sinfully attractive Samuel Blake.
Touch of a Dragon won Loose Id’s Hot Hooks Competition back in February. It’s out 24 August 2010 and here’s the unofficial blurb:
Half dead under a heap of rubble, Leona Munro isn’t going to turn down that offer. Yet accepting, spins her life out of control. She is the Chosen and what that means no one will say
Thrown into the world of the magic she secretly craves, Leona must find the strength to survive. Too many people want to use what she is to their own advantage in the war between technology and magic. She can trust no one…least of all the sinfully attractive Samuel Blake.
Touch of a Dragon won Loose Id’s Hot Hook contest 😀
The contest started last September, with the submission of a blurb and 250 words. I got to the next round – the top 10 – and had to submit the next 1000 words. From them, the top five were chosen and were asked to send in the finished works by 1 Feb 2010.
Touch of a Dragon has been a story I’ve had in some form or another for three years. It never sat quite right in my head…so I subbed the beginning to give me a kick start my brain into fixing the story. It went from 25k to 38k in January and radically changed from the original vision, but it’s good for it 🙂
I’m very happy others get to…experience…Samuel Blake… hehehe
Sunday was a bit of a mad day.
I got an email saying that TOUCH OF A DRAGON had reached the next round of the Loose Id Hot Hooks contest. I now have to finish and polish that story to within an inch of its life by 1 Feb 2010.
I got another email from my EC editor, saying yes, she’d love to contract my fantasy menage novel HER DARK SOUL 😀 The contract is winging its way across the pond as I type. You can get a sneak peek of the story further down in my blog. Here’s the link.
Then I sold SHAPES IN THE BLOOD to Loose Id. Yep. On the same day! The contract is keeping the other one company, lol Here’s the unofficial blurb for Shapes. I’m still working on the Her Dark Soul’s blurb.
Aila Parry is a disaster waiting to happen.
Bad luck dogs her, has followed her all her life, ever since her grandmother’s heated warning when she was only three years old. Food spoils, metal stresses and breaks, equipment fails…and people are wary of her, forming strange hatreds, or worse shunning her completely. Men run scared. Which is why her colleague, Nathan Ahern’s, interest stuns—and delights—her. But Nathan is not all that he appears to be. And the only need he has for Aila is the desire to spill her blood. Matt Kinnon, a tempting stranger, a man compelled to guard the human race from creatures like Nathan, offers her protection.
But can she trust a man who is as much a demon as the one who wants her dead?
And the fourth piece of good news I got was from Samhain. Weaving Words will be offered as a Kindle freebie from 15-28 December. So a nice little Christmas present for all new Kindle owners 😀
I made the Top Ten for this Loose ID contest on Sunday! Yes, I’m late in posting. It’s Twitter’s fault. I definitely blog less now that I use that, lol
So, this is the hook and 250 that got me enough votes to send me to the next round. I’ve sent in the first thousand words of Touch of a Dragon. I’m not certain whether it’ll be an in-house choice of the Top Five or readers will again get to decide, but I should know whether I made it to the next stage by 19 November.
Story Hook for Touch of a Dragon
“Do you want to live?”
Half dead and under a heap of rubble, Leona Munro isn’t going to turn down that offer. Yet accepting, spins her life out of control. She is the Chosen and what that means no one will say.
Thrown into the world of magic she secretly craves, Leona must find the strength to survive. Too many people want to use what she is to their own advantage in the war between technology and magic. She can trust no one…least of all the sinfully attractive Samuel Blake.
First 250:
“Do you want to live?”
What the hell…?
I focused on the brown hand thrust into my face, held onto it like a lifeline. Everything else around me was a scorched blur. My heart beat hard and pain rode through my flesh. Did I want to live? Where was I? What had happened? Panic bubbled and words burst out. “What sort of insane question is that?” I choked and agony shot over my skull.
“Make a choice.”
I breathed slow, wanting to ease the fear, the pain enveloping me and refocused on the man’s hand, on the ring on his third finger. Heavy, white gold and ornate, it gleamed against his smooth, brown skin. Something about it itched, tugging at my memory, but my dull brain couldn’t help me remember. I concentrated on his question instead. Letting out a slow breath, my throat hurt. “Choice?”
More sensation worked its way through my fogged brain, breaking the pounding pain beating against my skull. Flagstones scraped against my cheek, my jaw. Cold air brushed against my skin and the thin taste of smoke, brick dust, the river’s damp air slid into my lungs. I swallowed and blood and grit thickened in my mouth. All right, I was lying down outside somewhere. Which made no sense. I’d been what…heading into work? And then what? Collapsed, passed out? Now some freak with insane questions had found me. Always my luck.
KIM KNOX 