Guest Post w/ Kate Douglas- Oh things are a changing! + giveaway!

Our last author of 2013!! And it's Kate Douglas who is just an awesome lady and writes sexy para romances. Mmm. She's chatting today about some pretty exciting changes in 2014! Check out what she has going on and leave her some comment love to ring in the New Year! Oh. And she's offering a giveaway with her post (and an ARC for her next release!)! So be sure to comment. She's got some goodies in the grand prize drawing too because she's just all kinds of awesome :)

Review:
Dark Wolf

Romy Sarika has known only pain and perversion since her mother was murdered twenty years earlier. But Romy’s mother died as a wolf, and her genetic legacy is part of Romy’s life—if only she can learn to call on that other half of herself.
Jace Wolf and Gabe Cheval are on their annual survey of wild wolf packs in the Pacific Northwest, but when Jace uses his abilities to heal a badly injured wolf, he makes an unexpected discovery—the wolf is a shapeshifter. Jace, and Gabe are there as Romy learns to embrace her newfound heritage—one ruled by desire and needs she is only now beginning to understand. But will the power of the pack be enough to fight the evil force that wants Romy for its own?

Webpage Links to Come! Goodreads

Thanks so much for the chance to turn your blog into my personal soapbox for the day! I have a lot going on, beginning with the biggest change in my career in MANY years. For the first time in many years, I am heading into the New Year without a contract from a traditional publisher—it’s exciting and scary as hell, though at this point, the excitement is winning. So what’s coming?

So much my head is spinning!

To put things in perspective, just last year I started a new series based on my Chanku shapeshifters, the same characters I introduced in WOLF TALES. After twelve WOLF TALES novels and nine Chanku stories in eight SEXY BEAST and one WILD NIGHTS anthologies, it was time for that series to come to a close. What began with two couples had grown into a convoluted pack of thirty adults, one very present and involved goddess, twenty-six children, and more babies on the way. In the course of the series, they had spread out across the United States, with packs in Maine, Colorado, San Francisco and Montana, but by the end of that final book—WOLF TALES 12—almost all the Chanku were once again living as a pack in Montana.

What’s more, they’d announced their presence to the world. An act of bravery—an unscripted shift in front of cameras that saved many lives—effectively outed the Chanku. Now, humans knew shapeshifters lived among them. WOLF TALES 12 answered questions threaded throughout the twenty prior stories, but when it ended, I realized neither I nor my stories were done. I couldn’t stop wondering what was going to happen to the exceptional children I’d already met in the series.

Lily Cheval fascinated me. She was beyond precocious, already showing powers that overshadowed her über-alpha father. It didn’t take long for me to realize my curiosity of how children growing up in a world that knew of their existence—and in many ways feared their unusual powers—wasn’t going away. It was getting stronger, and that curiosity led to the new Spirit Wild series.

My publisher bought the first two books—DARK WOLF, which is Lily’s story, released in April 2013, and DARK MOON, about Igmutaka and Starr, and Sunny Daye and a mysterious stranger, will release in February 2014. But between the release of the two books, the publisher decided to drop the series. It was purely a business decision—sales of paranormal romances had fallen off— and it made sense from their perspective to pass on further books in the series.

However, I wasn’t ready to let it go. I am way too emotionally invested in these characters—all of these amazing children and their stories are important to me as an author, and hopefully to the readers, some of whom have followed my Chanku since the first stories released online from Changeling Press early in 2004. I talked it over with my agent, Jessica Faust, president of BookEnds LLC, and with her help, made the decision to go forward with the SPIRIT WILD series on my own....well, with Jessica’s help and her company, Beyond the Page Publishing.

In order to keep the momentum going, we decided to publish the first independent story in the series, DARK SPIRIT, in January. By releasing it ahead of DARK MOON, I’m hoping the book will show my readers that the series will be everything it’s been since WOLF TALES first appeared.

For those who have followed my various series over the years (the first was StarQuest, from Ellora’s Cave, beginning with LIONHEART in December 2001) you’ll know that I write in a linear fashion—my stories tend to have a serial quality that takes the reader through the story arc from point A to point B. I have never been particularly good at writing loosely linked stories. Instead, and I think it’s probably because I’m a “pantser” and tend to sit down to write without a full idea of what the story will be about until the characters tell me, my tales tend to be tightly intertwined and flow from one point to the next, from one book to the next.

Which means that, when I decided to write DARK SPIRIT and set it between two already completed books, I had to go inside that already established arc to find my new story...and damned if I didn’t find a good one.

As with most of my books, this one started with a visual, only it was unlike anything I’d done before. I saw a dark haired woman bound naked to a St. Andrew’s cross, (one shaped like an X rather than the traditional Christian cross) a small crowd standing around watching dispassionately while a man beat her with a bullwhip. Not quite the image I want over my morning coffee, but it was so powerful I knew I had my story.

Romy Sarika was the woman on the cross, her tale so unexpected, her challenges so great, and yet her ability to love so profound, that I think my readers will agree Romy is one of the most powerful women I’ve written about in all my tales of the Chanku. Pairing her with Jace Wolf, son of Adam and Liana Wolf, and his best friend Gabe Cheval, son of Anton and Keisha Cheval, created a dynamic that I think my readers will love.

Their story, DARK SPIRIT, will release sometime in early January. I won’t know the exact date until the digital file is actually uploaded, but as soon as it’s up and ready for download (it will be available in print a couple of days after the ebook release) I’ll announce it on my website as well as Facebook, Twitter, and my newsletter. If you see the message and don’t mind sharing it, I’d really appreciate your help. Trust me—going into this without a publishing house behind me is going to make an old woman out of me! 

If you’re curious and want to get a feel for the book, I’ve got two chapters on my website. Adults only, please!

Two other projects I’m working on include a romantic suspense called INTIMATE, and for those who want more background on the Chanku but haven’t read the Wolf Tales series, a compendium of Chanku history and lore. That will be a free download as soon as I can get it finished, though it will include spoilers from the original series. More news on that once it’s ready for release.

                                                                              ~Kate Douglas

  

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We've got a HUGE month long giveaway going on ---->

Check out the post and leave Kate some comment love!

She's also offering one commenter on this post...

a signed hard cover copy of Dark Wolf AND an ARC of Dark Moon!! Eep!