Alexia Chamberlynn -- Book Launch: Martinis with the Devil

I'm very happy and super-excited to have my friend and fellow-scribe Alexia Chamberlynn as a guest blogger today, so we can talk about her newest novel, Martinis with the Devil, Part One.

Alexia says that Martinis is free for a couple of weeks at Smashwords and B & N, so please read our short interview below and snatch it up! Here are some links:

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/622489


B & N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/martinis-with-the-devil-part-one-alexia-chamberlynn/1123516459?ean=2940152918359


Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Martinis-Devil-Part-Zyan-Star-ebook/dp/B01CXT1RR0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459961280&sr=1-1&keywords=chamberlynn


Let's start with a few words about your book. What's on the book flaps?


When offered a job on the Holy Representative’s special security team, bounty hunter Zyan Star couldn’t be less interested – until she finds out it’s her most hated of exes that they’re trying to track down. He broke her heart and dumped her, which in turn led to the loss of her soul at the hands of an immortal soul thief. Now she too exists on a diet of souls, with the occasional martini thrown in for good measure, and she’s had over two hundred years to fantasize about revenge. She just didn’t quite imagine it playing out alongside the emissaries of Heaven.

Working with Eli, the uptight angel that heads up the HR’s security, is just about as much fun as Zy expects. He of course wants her vampire ex brought to justice through legal avenues, which is very inconvenient and incredibly boring. As she dives into the case, however, she realizes there’s more at stake than her plot for payback. Like, the free will of mankind, and preventing the minions of hell from taking over the sovereign dimensions.

This job is going to push her to the limits of her abilities, and there’s just a slight problem with that: the powers she’s suppressed for centuries after losing control of them are exactly the powers she’s going to need to save the HR, end her millennia-old ex and stop Lucifer’s little plot to join the party and invade Earth.

Savior of humanity? Not so much. Or so she thought.


Heartbreak, martinis and revenge! Niiiiiiiiiiice! That's how it should always be! Now about you.What would your book's author blurb say?


Alexia lives in Florida. When she's not writing or reading, she can be found playing with horses, drinking wine, traveling to the next place on her global wish list, or maybe doing yoga. She is represented by Sandy Lu of the L. Perkins Agency.


When did you start writing?


I started writing stories when I was about five and never stopped. At around ten I submitted my first story to a magazine (Ranger Rick!) and got my first rejection. At twelve I attempted my first novel, which was about horses.


Good call! I sent a crappy poem to the New Yorker when I was about ten so I could get the first rejection out of the way! What kind of stuff do you like to write?


Fantasy, specifically contemporary or urban fantasy. It’s my favorite thing to read and write, because I absolutely love magic and the fantastical. I like to be taken on an adventure outside the usual realms of possibility. Being struck with inspiration for a new story, and then entering that raw, creative stage of the first draft. Anything is possible, and it’s just the best feeling ever. Some people are scared of the blank page, but I love it. Writing is magic.


Definitely. It keeps ya sane. What do you do when you're not writing?


I have a horse, and I train with him (he’s still young). I also do yoga, and I like to walk, and occasionally jog. Also a big foodie, so trying new recipes is fun (and drinking wine while I’m cooking!). Traveling is also a big love of mine. And reading, of course.


I love reading, too. Fiction is a great teacher, and a great escape! Who are your favorite authors?


Neil Gaiman is my current favorite. I also love Maggie Stiefvater, Erin Morgenstern and Laini Taylor. My early inspirations were Tolkien, Tad Williams, Tamora Pierce, Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman, and then a bit later Laurell K. Hamilton and Tanya Huff.


My first story was "A Christmas Carole," which was really a holiday card for my Mom, named [see title], one Christmas when she was really sick. I was seven, so I can't vouch for the quality! What inspired you to start writing?


I didn’t have that one defining moment that writers talk about. I’ve just always loved books and written my own stories. As I mentioned above, it was young, around when I was five. The first thing I remember writing was a story about a girl getting a pony for Christmas, which I wrote to manipulate my parents!


Hey, I hope that worked and you got that pony! Now--vampires! What's your favorite thing vampire?


My first foray into urban fantasy was through Laurell K. Hamilton and her Anita Blake vampire hunter series. I also loved Buffy. I mean, she's so fun. That's one thing that I like about Zyan is that she's fun. Not too serious, not too dark. She doesn't take much seriously. I also loved the first Underworld movie.


Yeah--Kate Beckinsale kickin' butt! Speaking of that, your heroine, Zyan Star, has a kickass job--a bounty hunter! What's the most kickass job you've ever had?


Hmmm. Probably my most kickass job was as a horse trainer and equine massage therapist. Of course, being a writer is pretty kickass. You get to create worlds, breathe life into characters, and hold the balance of good and evil in your hands :)


Very true. Okay, to finish up: Drinks and Devils. Besides Satan himself, what other badass would you like to have a drink and a chat with?


Probably Death. I mean, what an interesting job! I'd love to find out more about it.


Okay, now the drink. My favorite martini is boringly traditional: Ketel One, dirty, with olives, rocks on the side. What's yours?


I like flavored ones. Probably my favorite is a key lime martini (maybe because I'm from Florida). I've also had really great creamsicle martinis and a chocolate/butterscotch one that was to die for! Basically, dessert in a glass, but with a kick :)


Thanks, Alexia!


If bounty hunters, angels, vampires, heartbreak, martinis and the Devil--all mashed together in an urban fantasy romp--sounds good to you, please get a free copy (available for the next few weeks) of Alexia's book, Martinis with the Devil, Part One, available now at the following links, provided again below for your convenience:


Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/622489


B & N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/martinis-with-the-devil-part-one-alexia-chamberlynn/1123516459?ean=2940152918359


Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Martinis-Devil-Part-Zyan-Star-ebook/dp/B01CXT1RR0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459961280&sr=1-1&keywords=chamberlynn

Comic Con 2014 in Providence, Rhode Island

Photo: The entrance for this year's Comic Con in Providence, Rhode Island.

Photos: Hundreds of people, if not more, stood in line outside the Convention Center, in howling wind and rain, and never got in.  These were amongst them.  I took the shot of these cold, disgruntled people as I left the Con and went to my car.  The line started in the lobbies, went downstairs, then started again at the doors outside, snaked around the building, and ended past these people, in front of the garage I parked in.  Poor souls.


I had a great Saturday at Comic Con, though it apparently turned into a horror show for everyone who arrived after 12 p.m. or so.  Ticketmaster or the Convention Center (they're playing tennis with the blame) never stopped selling tickets, so that thousands of people past the max showed up.  When I left at about 3:30 p.m. (I got there at 8:30 a.m., waited with hundreds of others in The Dunk--as opposed to many hundred who waited outside in the cold, wind and rain--until the doors opened at 10:00 a.m.).  But when I walked out at 3:30 p.m., there were hundreds of people waiting in the lobbies, another hundred or so downstairs, and many hundreds of others outside in a long line, in a pouring rain.  Most of those outside never got in at all!

But I did.  Got there early, despite the protests of my friends, who said I was crazy, that it wouldn't be crowded.  (Though driving there was a breeze; took about 20 minutes.)

I spoke to, got pictures of (and with), and got autographs from:

1.  Anthony Michael Hall (Very nice and humble.  Different than I'd heard, and he'd lost a lot of weight since The Dark Knight.  I was his first fan of the day--he was about a half-hour late, as were most of the other celebs.)

2.  Karen Allen (Still very pretty and funny-feisty.  Same exact smile and laugh.)

3.  Michael Biehn (He's had a stroke, or he has MS or MD or something similar.  Looked really, really bad, more of a walking dead than Scott Wilson or Seth Gilliam.  Really too bad; one of my favorite 80s actors.)

4.  William Katt (The Greatest American Hero, though I still prefer him in the original Carrie.  Looks about the same; very fit and looking good for his age.)

5.  John Rhys-Davies (His last name is pronounced like Davis; didn't know that.  I prefer him as Sallah from Raiders of the Lost Ark, with Karen Allen, though he's very good, of course, as Gimli in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I got his autograph and Karen Allen's on the same Raiders picture.)

6.  Seth Gilliam (Father Gabriel from The Walking Dead.  Extremely fit and lean and athletic-looking.  Very energetic, positive, pumped kind of guy.)

7.  Took a break from autograph-hunting to sit in the audience for a panel discussion with Karen Allen and John Rhys-Davies speaking of Raiders.  I went to the mike and asked a question to them about being directed by Steven Spielberg, as I had also been "directed" by him as an extra in Amistad.  A friend took a video of me asking my question, and their 5+-minute answer.

8.  Scott Wilson (Hershel from The Walking Dead.)  He had by far the longest lines of any celebrity there that day--much longer than William Shatner and the other Trekkers.

9.  Eliza Dushku.  I've only seen her in True Lies, long before she was in Buffy, and Angel, and other things I never saw.  Had a couple of bags stolen from her by a guy Channel 10 said was wearing "an Egyptian costume."  Maybe Sallah?  Incredibly, unbelievably beautiful, far more than the "supermodels" and "models" there.

Not a bad day, despite being packed in like sardines (since the Con violated fire safety laws and went way over the limit), and despite, once again (as at Terror Con in the same building), dealing with a staff who didn't know anything about anything.  At both Cons combined, I asked the staff about ten questions--mind-boggling things, like "Where's the nearest exit?" or "Where's the ATM?"--and each time I was told, "I don't know."  Literally, each and every single time.

So there's a lot of stuff for a lot of blog entries.  I'll cover one at a time, in the order I got their autographs, or their picture.  The list above is the exact order.

There'll be lots of pictures of the celebs and of their autographs, plus a bit on what they were in and how those movies or shows effected me.  Hope you like 'em.

National Dog Day--Jackson the Greyhound

Title says it all, right?  So in honor of National Dog Day, here are some pics of Jackson the Greyhound.

Which one's your favorite?  (You can click on the pics to make them bigger.)

Have your own blog or YouTube with your favorite dog pics or actions?  Feel free to say so below.

                                                                Rocky Point Jackson

Parking Lot Jackson

Ponderous Jackson

Angelic Couch Jackson

Happy Ascot Jackson

Grinning Jackson

Field Goal Jackson

Watching the Mailman Jackson

Cute Sniffing Jackson

By the way, There's still a few days to enter my free contest, tied in with my most recent paid-for and published short story, "Everything's Connected."  It's a very, very short piece. Description: "Everything's Connected," is about a detective who catches a cheating spouse in the act (sort of), solves a kid's disappearance, and proves a little theoretical quantum physics--all in just a few minutes!

It can be read in about five minutes, too.  Please go to this link to enter the contest and to read the story.  Thanks to everyone who has done so already.

Dan Brown's Inferno and the Joy of Info. Dumping

Photo: Inferno's first edition hardcover, from its Wikipedia site

I liked Inferno, but I can't say that I really liked it, and I certainly didn't love it.  It's got some things going for it, but it's got a surprising number of things against it, too.

It depends on why you're reading this book, I guess.  If you're looking for really good writing, whatever that is, exactly, then you're going to strike out here.  Some parts made me shake my head, literally.  There are some parts that are so remarkably bad, you'll want to put the book down, but you won't.  (One aspect of the ending made me want to do this.  Actually, some parts are so bad that it reminded me of the famous Dorothy Parker quip, that "...this isn't a book to be put aside lightly.  It should be thrown with great force.")  Some parts really are that bad, so be forewarned. 

What makes them bad?  Well, in a nutshell, Brown's writing is at its worst when he tries to give his characters some depth, and I mean that in the best of all possible ways.  He just can't.  It is that simple.  His characters just say things.  And they just do things.  Anytime he tries to get beneath that surface, your eyes will roll, I assure you.

Robert Langdon, for example, is (in)famously described, very simply, as Harrison Ford in tweed.  Brown describes him that way in every single book, and he makes Langdon describe himself that way, and he makes many of the other characters describe him that way.  Everyone, in fact, in Brown's universe, describes him that way.  This is very lazy writing, of course, as if nothing else about him needs to be said.  And, in a way, that's true.  Nothing else really is needed.  He's smart and erudite.  He's tall and handsome.  He has a deep voice and he wears tweed.  And that's it, throughout four books now.  Nothing else is needed because, frankly, there isn't anything else.

But there's a method to this madness.  Is Brown simply incapable of giving him individual depth, or is there another reason?  Well, there is something else.  Langdon is a blank slate because the reader needs to have room to put himself in Langdon's clothes.  In short, we are Robert Langdon.  He is the audience figure, perhaps one of the better ones in contemporary fiction.  And if he had more specific personality, that would shut us out, because he would be too uniquely himself.  There wouldn't be room for us in there.  We would have to watch him do things, rather than us being him, thereby allowing us to do those things, instead.  It's the difference between playing a video game and watching the character do things, and playing more of a reality role-playing game, and feeling like it's us actually doing those things.  This, plus the world-traveling, the codes and puzzles, and the info. dumping, are the reasons why his books work like they do.

Of course, Brown also carries this into his minor characters, which is bad.  And he tends to get a little preachy about his themes, which Inferno certainly does.  By the end, you'll wonder about how Brown actually feels about what his antagonist feels.  I think they're one and the same.  Brown gets just as fever-pitched as his antagonist does.  And he, and his characters, are severely repetitive about it, too.

For the record, their point--that this world is so overpopulated that we could potentially create our own cataclysmic demise--is well-taken, and well-known.  I know that we don't need a super-villain (or not, depending on your point of view) to create a virus that will become our present-day Black Death; there are plenty of them out there right now, including two presently incurable viruses written about this week, one in California, the other in Saudi Arabia.  We are very overdue for another pandemic like 1918's super-flu, which originated in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and which killed hundreds of millions throughout the world, more than every war combined.  The population-thinning virus before that?  The tuberculosis of the mid- to late-1800s.  One herd-thinning virus tends to hit the world every fifty years or so.  Nature has a way of cleaning its own house.  The book will hit you over the head with this, and then stuff it down your throat, about fifty times over--and then it will end with a horrific event that all of the characters just shrug their shoulders about.  Very, very odd.

Having said all that, there is a lot to like about this book, which isn't as good as Angels & Demons or The Da Vinci Code, but is a bit better than the slower The Lost Symbol and Dan Brown's others.  In fact, the best (and perhaps only) good thing about The Lost Symbol is what works really well with Inferno.  In The Lost Symbol, I was surprised to learn about how much like a deity George Washington was treated.  The painting of Washington standing like God, or like Jesus, in the clouds, in a giant painting on the ceiling of The Capitol, is flat-out creepy and fascinating.  Without The Lost Symbol, I wouldn't have ever known about that, or about the painting, or a few other things about D.C. in general.

I felt the same about Inferno.  Though lots of writers have used Dante's work as a focal point for a novel of historical fiction--the best is perhaps Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club--this book works because it brings the world-famous work of Dante to light, to better historical context, and to a better present-day understanding.  It made me want to take out my (very nice) copy of The Divine Comedy and to read it, which I'd never really done before--well, beyond line 50, anyway.  (I have a feeling that Dan Brown would be very happy if his book was well-received and that it made people want to read Dante again.)

Dan Brown's Inferno also will show you a lot of Dante's death mask, St. Mark's, Venice, Istanbul / Constantinople, Florence, The Hagia Sophia (mentioned before in Brown's works), the Palazzo Vecchio, and seemingly dozens of other things.  All of this was so interesting that I found myself wanting to buy The Illustrated Inferno once it comes out.

And that's why you read this stuff, right?  To place yourself as Langdon into all of the places he goes, to see all of the things he sees, to think about and to know all of the things he thinks about and knows.  To learn about all of the stuff that Dan Brown teaches us with the info. dumps.  To Google all of the things he refers to that we find interesting.  To travel to all of the places he travels to.  (Dan Brown clearly has his very favorite places in Florence, Venice, Rome, Vatican City, and Istanbul.  You have to spend a lot of time in all of these places to know their nooks and crannies, to have favorite spots.  I mean, I know Fenway Park like that, because I practically live there.  That's how well Brown knows these places, and there's a large amount of envy on my part involved with that.)

Anyway, to rate this, I'd probably give it three stars if I was in a writerly mood at the time, because the characterization, and sometimes, the plot, really are that bad.  But I'd give it four, maybe even five, stars if I was in the mood to remember that we read his stuff for the globe-trotting, for the vast amount of info. he has about history, about art and architecture, about stuff that you wouldn't normally think about.  And, if I was to remember that to do all this, for the reader to feel this way, the main character would have to be such an empty shell so that there'd be room for us to step in to experience these things.

So if that's what you want, you should read this.  If it isn't, if you want characterization and plot, you'd be better off with almost anybody else.  Read and choose accordingly.

The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr

Photo: Book's cover from its Wikipedia page

Almost as quick a read as its predecessor, this one is told from the point of view of Stevie, from his cigarette shop, as he looks back on his past.  The cast is all here, and a few more characters show up, including one of the all-time bad women you'll ever read about--who unfortunately reminded me of a few people I used to know, but that's a review for another day.

NYC in the late 1890s is brought to vivid life again, but with a bit more of a bittersweet tinge to the tale, as Stevie also writes about his love at the time, a drug addict / prostitute who never had a chance to go straight.  The very strong theme here is the role of females in that world, and, no doubt, in this one, and what, if any, males in a male-dominated era (then and now) may have helped cause some women to kill their children.  The socio-politics described are too complex to go into here, but they are not easily dismissed or ignored, and the reader may recognize some of what is described.  The villainess is almost as much of a victim as the actual victims--so much so that I looked up the real-life women mentioned by the author as topics of research in his acknowledgement section.  These real-life women all killed their own children, and many of their men, to such a degree that you'd have to wonder if anyone in the legal or medical communities were paying attention.  One woman brought one child to the hospital, dead.  Then another.  Then another...until all twelve were dead.  Another woman killed off her children, and literally dozens of men who came to her farm to win her favors--favors that were advertised in area newspapers.  This woman was often seen digging in the middle of the night in her hog pen--and she'd had dozens of heavy trunks delivered to her property.

At any rate, this one has more than a few things in common thematically with my own WIP, including how women are treated in a male-dominated society.  This novel also ends with a slow declining arc, more than a little bit after the main conflict has been resolved, just as mine does.

Anyway, great writing (except for an aboriginal hitman that didn't work for me), great historical detail, and some strong wistful nostalgia at the end that readers older than 30 should recognize, all coalesce in a novel that was quickly read and thoroughly appreciated.

Published in 1997, this has been the last in the series, and you have to wonder why.  Both were tremendous bestsellers, and this second one mentions frequently that the group was involved in many other cases, both all together and, for Sara Howard, by herself, so there's plenty of other potential material to write about...and yet Caleb Carr never has.  Here's to hoping he comes out with another one soon.

The Restorer by Amanda Stevens

photo: Book cover from the author's website, www.amandastevens.com

So I'm standing in Stop & Shop, where I buy many of my books these days--which is an issue I'll probably take up with my blog--when I saw this book.  Quick to judge a book by its cover, literally and metaphorically, I saw the image of a seemingly-weeping stone angel, its wings drooped and its face under its right arm, its left arm hanging loosely over a cemetery mausoleum.  The caption reads, "Every cemetery has a story.  Every grave, its secrets."  And Publishers Weekly said it was a "creepy, atmospheric tale."  On the back, Heather Graham (I read this quote because I thought it was the super-sexy actress commenting, but alas...) said that the author "...has managed the difficult feat of combining charms and chills..."  Now, I've been doing research about graveyards and gravestones for my novel, The Gravediggers.  And I admit to a morbid fascination of this stuff.  (For example, I can look at the front of a New England gravestone and tell you the approximate year of construction without looking at the dates.  It's all in the skulls, angels or urns on the front, or the flat or rounded shoulders, or the rock used--thin black slate is much older...I can do the same with the backs of baseball cards, but I digress.)  As this all had some slight bearing on The Gravediggers, I thought I'd see how someone else handled a few things I have to work with.

After buying it, I realized it was a Harlequin book, and I became slightly ashamed of myself.  As I'd already spent the money--and as I've been sniffling with a sore throat and blocked ears the past few days--I thought I'd try it anyway, and I would breeze past the sultry scenes.

Much to my surprise--and bias--I have to say that it was a very good, quick, and, indeed, a chilly and atmospheric read.  Most of it does take place in graveyards, which can get old pretty quick, but the author manages to describe the same things in different ways--or, in some cases, repeating creepy things to good effect.  The doom and gloom never gets old.  There is no actual bodice-ripping to speak of, thank God, and the romance is kept to a minimum--much of it one-sided until the end.  The mysteries are mysterious enough, though the book focuses more on the atmosphere than on the mystery.  It's solved very quickly, and perhaps abruptly, at the end, and the revelation probably won't surprise you.  (I have to admit that I nailed the villain right away.  But that's me.)  The ending was satisfying for me despite this, and the author carefully and wisely ends it with an open door to the sequel--though in an author-intrusion/speaking to the reader way that was consistent throughout the book, and which I could have done without.

The characters are (mostly) believable, as are the plot points and situations.  The main character, also the 1st person narrator, is a graveyard restorer (hence the title).  This is apparently not a well-paying job, though there's obviously plenty of old graveyards in the south and in New England that need tending.  I was always under the impression that local historical societies took care of this sort of thing themselves, but I suppose it's plausible that they may seek contract help.  Since these societies are vastly underfunded with local tax dollars and count heavily on volunteers--even in the administration--I wonder if this part is very plausible, but whatever.  You've got to get her in there.  (I volunteer a tiny bit for a local historical society, and the woman in charge of it is a volunteer who goes into the office only on Mondays.)  Of course, there aren't any symbologists, either, but Dan Brown got away with it.  (And this book mentions that very term, and is heavy, but not dependent, on symbols, and secret societies, etc.)  Anyway, the focus isn't on the main character's job, but is instead on her ability to see spirits--and the dangers they present.  Her father had also had the gift (or curse) and was also a graveyard restorer, and he gave her a set of rules to live by, because otherwise the spirits will latch on to you, forever.  As in, even after death.  The Harlequin focus, if you will, is on how she throws all those rules away when the haunted and brooding police detective enters her life.  The number one rule: Don't acknowledge the ghosts.  Don't even look at them.  If you do, they'll latch on to you.  She never dates, either, because of how often she sees ghosts, and their haunted hosts.  And, besides, who wants to date someone who smells like death all the time?

Of course, why someone who insists she needs to stay away from all these ghosts continues to take jobs working in cemeteries is never addressed.  I mean, where else would you run into more ghosts than a cemetery?  But, whatever, suspension of disbelief, and all that.  The main character is likeable and the minor characters are passable (though not fleshed out and a little interchangeable), so if you're appreciably creeped out by Gothic things, and if you can remember your teenage and college years when you walked alone in graveyards at times, pick this up and read it.  I'm going back to Stop & Shop to pick up the sequel now.

And, about buying books at Stop & Shop now that there's only one bookstore outlet in the state...