Category Archives: Assassins

Nemesis is HERE!

As hard as it is for me to believe considering Nemesis didn’t exist a year ago, release day is here!

Thank you so much to everyone who has read and supported Discord, and thank you for all the excitement about Nemesis!

I’ve talked about the bittersweet pleasure of ending this series, & soon I’ll talk about how hard Nemesis was to write at times. Mostly, though, today I want to celebrate the simple success of finishing what I started and crossing off an author goal of writing an action movie.

In case you didn’t know, I have always had a very strong appreciation for action movies. If there are explosions and fights, I’m in. It shouldn’t be a surprise then that my thriller series is basically a really long love letter to those movies. Banter, explosions, guns, car chases, espionage, disguises, kidnappings, massive threats, conspiracies–the Assassins books have it all.

As hard as some sections of the plot were to write this year, I had a lot of fun with the action sequences in both books. I also loved including a f/f bisexual romance in Discord, kind of a gift for my friends in high school. It’s a book I wish they’d had then. It made me even happier to build a gray-ace/pan pairing in Nemesis. Developing their bond & letting them find balance was fantastic. Nemesis is somehow both quieter AND darker than Discord. It’s somehow both sweeter and bloodier, too. I wrote both, and I’m not even sure how that dichotomy happened. Honestly. It’s true, though.

Each book of the Assassins duology has something different to say, but hopefully readers will connect with both in some real way.

It’s finally here! Get Nemesis now.

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Nemesis is here in T-minus…

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There is only one week–ONE! WEEK!–until the Nemesis release!

This week I’m going to talk about how important and very much not a trend accurate, diverse, respectful representation is.

I am asexual. I know this now, but it’s not something I discovered until I was 29. After marriage, divorce, and therapy. For more on that, I’ve written essays about asexuality on my site: Don’t Erase the Aces || Identity, Spectrums, and Labels

Growing up, there were few characters I truly identified with, and none who didn’t eventually find their fulfillment with sex. The lack of representation substantiated my growing belief that my lack of interest in sex meant something was fundamentally wrong with me. This is why I promised myself I’d include an ace-spectrum character in all my books. I don’t want other kids to grow up without the word.

Representation of the world around us AS IT ACTUALLY IS is crucial for so many reasons, and I try to make my books reflect that. I try to do this not just with the inclusion of asexuality, but with everything I trust myself to portray with respectful accuracy.

The cast of the Assassins duology is heterogeneous in race and sexuality, and it’s reflective of the world I grew up in. We need more stories to be mirrors of reality–and we need more of them written by those not usually reflected in those mirrors. Blake’s romantic arc is a close reflection of my own orientation, and I hope she’ll be the same kind of mirror for someone else.

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Two weeks to Nemesis!

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The Calvers and Kindra are back in TWO WEEKS! Things haven’t gotten any less dangerous for them since #Discord. What is new–and what I’ll be talking about this week–is Nemesis’s narrator Blake Marks, a civilian caught in the Calvers’ chaos.

My original plan for book 2 was to carry Kindra through as the primary POV. Second plan had Daelan telling the story. Neither fit. I knew Blake–who I introduced in Discord–needed to be a bigger part of the next story, but I didn’t immediately consider using them as narrator. Eventually I grew to like the idea of a civilian perspective on the world of hit squads, conspiracies, crime, & incredibly gray morality.

Enter Blake, an orphaned, intersex, expressively genderfluid but mentally agender, multi racial and ethnic, pan-romantic graysexual teen. Throughout Nemesis, Blake switches pronouns based on presentation. For this thread, I’ll be using she.

Blake is outside my experience in almost every way, but hopefully my research and interviews helped me write her respectfully. What also worried me about Blake narrating was how different the voice would be from Kindra’s in Discord.

Kindra is sarcastic, brash, bloody, definitively not ace-spectrum, and readers have responded incredibly well to her voice. Blake quips, but is softer spoken. She’s been thrust into a world she barely understands and is trying to cope with major loss. Blake is uncertain where Kindra is confident, conflicted where Kindra is unquestioning, & inexperienced where Kindra is expert. Although Blake is a civilian, she was raised by a military mother & an FBI agent father. She isn’t expert, but she can protect herself.

Hopefully, everyone will love Blake as much as they have Kindra, because I definitely do. She’s absolutely amazing.

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Only Three Weeks to Nemesis!

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Three weeks from today (THREE! WEEKS!), Nemesis releases. Three weeks from today, I close out a series for the first time.

Getting an official “The End” is amazing. I have 3 series running now, and neither of my others is close to over. Granted, Assassins is a duology instead of a quartet or quintet, but original plans had Dream War or Laguna ending first. Life and publishing happened, so somehow it’s come to pass that the third series I started is the first to cross the finish line.

It’s sad, in a way. I feel like I missed the chance to really live in this world. The writing and editing of both books were a whirlwind. However, it might be best. The Assassins stories are bloody and dangerous in a way my other books aren’t. Writing a series like Assassins, and especially a book like Nemesis, when the world too much reflects the subject was hard.

In three weeks, though, you can meet Blake and reacquaint yourself with Kindra and the Calvers. They’re fighting a modern war, and the conclusion of that complicated battle closes out the arc started in Discord. In three weeks, I say goodbye to a cast of characters for the first time. Maybe by then I’ll know if I’m more excited or sad.

Help me celebrate the end! Preorder Nemesis.

Three books, three tours.

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2016 has been a dumpster fire in so many ways for so many people, and I would really love to start 2017 on a positive note. To that end, I’m running paperback blogger tours for three of my books: Discord, Nemesis, and Island of Exiles.

To participate, there are only two big qualifications:
1) Own or contribute to a YA review blog
2) Be willing to mail the book to the next on the list

Readers will be invited to mark up the books, highlighting favorite passages or writing notes in the margins, and the book will get sent back to me at the end of the tour to be kept as a special keepsake. Additionally, all participants will get special behind-the-scenes info on the book they’re reading AND they’ll get the chance to vote on what content they see. As an added bonus, bloggers who are willing to coordinate one of the tours will receive a special gift from me when the tour ends!

Right now this will be US only, mostly because I can’t ask one blogger to cover the cost of shipping overseas. HOWEVER, if there’s enough interest, I’ll buy a copy through Book Depository for a separate international tour.

Signups open today, Monday December 12, 2016, and they’ll stay open for more than a month with the books getting shipped to the first participants just before the new year. The tour itself will continue for several months to give each reader time to enjoy the book and get it sent off to the next blogger.

If you have any questions about the tour, email me!

ASSASSINS: DISCORD – More Info | Signup Form
ASSASSINS: NEMESIS – More Info | Signup Form
ISLAND OF EXILES – More Info | Signup Form

Coming in 2017!

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In the first two months of 2017, I close out one series and immediately launch a new one. I can’t wait for both of these very different books to be out in the world!