It's Here! St. Nick's Favor

Please drop in this afternoon (Tues. Dec. 18th) to
the virtual release party for St. Nick's Favor, the sequel to Chasing
the Trickster.

The party will be held from 1-5 pm EST. There will be novel and
short story giveaways. Also holiday recipes and music (if I can
figure out how to do that with Facebook). And there
will be a book trailer for St. Nick's Favor as well.

 Free copies will be available to reviewers.

Blurb:
St. Nicholas asks Nina Weaver to be his emissary. Her mission is to
take a one-way trip five years into her past to save the lives of
thousands of children. Doing this will result in her losing the life
she has built in New York City, including her relationship with
Pascal Guzman. Nina faces down corporate greed, attempts on her life
and the terrors of the Trickster God to keep her promise.

Even if you can't attend the party, please drop by to "like" the page. http://www.facebook.com/StNicksFavor?ref=hl

Hope to see you there,

April Grey

Blog Interview Today and Book Giveaway

Hi Everyone,

I'm interviewed today at Laurie's Paranormal Thoughts: http://buff.ly/RelHJv . Please drop by and leave a comment.

Avril Grey
Chasing the Trickster

Why I Support E-publishing

I consider myself a greeny wannabe, and when it came right down to it, when I was sending my first novel, Chasing The Trickster, out to agents, I had visions in my head of advances not earned out and my book with it's cover ripped off filling some warehouse in New Jersey.

Eventually the feeling got so strong that I sent my novel to an e-publisher and was delighted to be accepted. With e-pub it can stay in cyberspace a very long time, which meant working with a publisher willing to return those rights became very important. I am very happy with my e-publishing contract.

Which brings me to Gordon Dahlquist. You may have never heard of him, but he has written the best steampunk literature that I have read. Based on his works I consider myself a lover of steampunk, yet, I often find myself disappointed when I read other steampunk because nothing seems to match the sheer joy I had when tearing through the first two volumes of his Glass Books of the Dream Eaters.

Maybe you have heard of him. He was the guy who got a $2 million dollar advance and only earned back $800,000. Oh, yeah...

Well, he's coming out with The Chemickal Marriage, a third book. [Depending on how you count - the first book The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters was divided into two volumes (over 400 pages each), and the follow up was called The Dark Volume (500 pages). So it's the fourth book in the series and perhaps the last if this is indeed a trilogy.]

The Dark Volume left the reader dangling. I'd say to my husband, who has no choice but to at least pretend to be listening, "Mr. Dahlquist doesn't know how to end a book."  But I'd say that still craving the next one. I really want to get my hands on this new book, still not quite believing that the story will ever end.

Here it is end of July and its publication date was at the beginning of this month. Penguin UK has it listed, it's published by their imprint Viking but Penguin doesn't even have it listed on its American website.

Furthermore, this book is only available in hardcover. And the hardcover wasn't available at my local Barnes and Noble yesterday. Barnes and Noble on-line lists his other books and an upcoming book, The Different Girl, but no mention of The Chemickal Marriage. Why don't they just sow the ground with salt?

Amazon is better. The hardcover is available, with the paperback coming out Jan. 31st of next year. At 528 pages, I don't look forward to owning the hardback copy and lugging it around.  So, as much as I am aching to read this book, I'll probably wait.

And that is another reason why I love e-pubs. It's lightweight and I can usually get it immediately.

If anyone has any info to add it about getting a kindle copy of The Chemickal Marriage it would be great to hear from you. Also, I do have an announcement to make, but I have to put it off until the right time, which I hope will be soon.

A Rose is a Rose: What's in a name?

When creating names for my characters I sometimes just "know" what the character's name is. It pops into my head with no effort on my part. I'll then check through baby name sites for the meanings of the names. Just for fun? Hmmm.

Looking up the meaning of names might be a colossal time waster; however, for me the name's meaning gives me additional information about the character and even inspiration.

In Chasing the Trickster:

• Jeanine Weaver, Jeanine means God is Gracious and Weaver represents the tale of Arachne, a young woman transformed. 
• Pascal Guzman, Pascal is for Easter child and Guzman is "good man." French and Latino, just like Pascal.
• His sister is Rose White because she is larger than life with lots of thorns, but has a petal soft side.
• Kate Wainwright was originally an Elizabeth, but being best friends with Linda Brockhurst the L-L thing might have become annoying. So I didn’t' stay with the original name.  Maybe she's actually Katherine Elizabeth Wainwright. Her last name came to be because her parents run Wainwright Reality and it felt like a tongue twister. I laugh whenever I try to say it out loud. Katherine means "pure" but it can also mean "magic." Wainwright means "wagon builder."  It told me a lot about her personality.
• Linda Brockhurst - Linda "pretty" and Brockhurst, "badger woods." 
• Linda's daughter Amanda is "worthy of love" and is named after her step-grandmother.
• Joe is from Joseph, a Biblical name and it means "he will enlarge." I guess that's a good thing. But Joseph was also the husband of Mary, so a father figure to Jesus. Joe, the self-given name of an ancient pagan fertility god also considers himself a father to Pascal.
• Linda's hubby is Andrew Brockhurst, and Andrew means warrior. I recounted his last name above. "Woods of the Badger-Warrior" Cool

These names all popping out of nowhere is weird I guess, but I have a thing for names. That Andrew is the father of Amanda, pleased me no end since it would be Andy and Mandy for their knick names.

But to get a bit weirder, when I went to my high school reunion last year it sudden hit home that many of the names I had used for my characters came from kids I had gone to school with. The characters were nothing like the kids, but somehow these names had stuck with me for all these years and were leaping out upon the page without my conscious awareness.

Many authors show amazing creativity and playfulness when naming their characters. One only has to look to the books of Harry Potter to see an ironic and eclectic use of names, not just for her character alone but in place names, spells and all sorts of items.

What authors have you found to use great imagination with names? Or if you are a writer, could you share with us how some of your characters came to be named?

What a Weekend!

Here in Hell's Kitchen we have a yearly arts festival and studio tour called "Artists in the Kitchen." As I did last year, I participated in the activities by giving a reading from my works.

Yesterday and today, I read the first chapter from Chasing the Trickster to a small, but appreciative audience at the Oasis Community Garden. It felt great. I love reading from this novel.

Also, my collection of short stories, "The Fairy Cake Bake Shoppe and 13 Other Weird Tales" is now available from Smashwords.

For readers of this blog I have a discount coupon code:PJ45N - good until July 7th.

Please head over and download your copy. And please let me know what you think.