Wild Thing releases today in mass-market format!

New York Times bestselling authors Maggie Shayne and Marjorie M. Liu, and sizzling newcomers Meljean Brook and Alyssa Day discover the wild instinct in everyone with four stories of feral heat…

WILD THING

“Paradise”

Lucas Marsden has faced nosferatu before and survived, but he doesn’t know how to defeat the demon who hunts the vampires in his community… But he knows exactly what he wants from the beautiful Guardian sent to protect them.

This is the third story in the Guardian series. 

$7.99 Berkley Sensation ISBN 0425225445
Amazon.com ~ Borders.com ~ Powells.com

“Once again, Brook plays with the notion of free will on multiple levels, adding hope to her dark world of demons and nosferatu, and substance to a genre that is too often dismissed as fluff.” — Nicola, Alpha Heroes

Thanks to random.org, we have the winning comment numbers:

#18 – cyclops8

#118 – Marcy Strahan

#92 – Hesper F

Congratulations! Please contact me (see link above) with your mailing address, and I’ll send the anthology ASAP.

Thank you so much to everyone who entered.

Wild Thing is on remainder sale at B&N for $4

(Don’t forget it includes the prequel to Marjorie Liu’s THE IRON HUNT, which is releasing soon.

And Alyssa Day’s Atlantis novella, of which there is another book in the series releasing Aug 5.

And Maggie Shayne’s novella (her LOVER’S BITE just came out, too (but that story is unrelated to her vampire series.)))

((I’m not sure if they’re re-releasing it in mass-market, which is mostly why I’m pointing this out — the normal $14 price tag might stay for a while.))

Okay, I only got six entries, because I probably made it too hard.

So, instead of giving away four copies, I’ll give away six, and everyone’s a winner!

Bonnie Ferguson
Crystal Broyles
May
Janice Young
Jung Ja Ahn
Sue Ahn

Congratulations, everyone!

viktor_57 reviews WILD THING at Amazon (and don’t miss his other reviews).

He very obviously took the info about the novellas that is available on our sites and just rewrote them (but it’s pretty entertaining — the last paragraph is priceless) But as with the commenters who were following Harriet around a while back, I have to wonder at their purpose again — or rather, not their purpose, because obviously they revile the Klausner — but the time and effort they’re taking to stop her. And what does he think this will do? Make her stop reviewing or review differently? Does he plan to use this later, maybe like an “How I became an Amazon top reviewer and got free books without reading a single one!” exposé?

It’s very odd.

And a kind of related question: when did the series names start showing up alongside the books (esp. in anthologies) and how does it get there? Through Amazon or the publisher? ‘Cuz it’d be great to have the series order listed like that, without a reader having to check at my site to see if there are other books in the series.

Below are the links to the anthology’s authors’ websites, blogs, and MySpace pages.

Maggie Shayne’s interview — novella — MySpace
Marjorie M. Liu’s interview — novella — MySpace
Alyssa Day’s interview — novella — MySpace
Meljean Brook’s interview — novella — Myspace

Somewhere hidden in those pages are the answers to the following questions — please look around, answer each question, and send your list of answers to meljean@meljeanbrook.com (SUBJECT: “Scavenger Hunt!) or use the contact form provided at the bottom of the page. The hunt will be open until Friday, May 4th, at midnight (Pacific time).

The prize? Four entrants will be randomly chosen to receive a copy of WILD THING!

1. In the sole trailer made for the anthology, what two items are shown to represent a detective and a veterinarian?
2. Name the book that is an upcoming July release, and serves in place of a photo on MySpace — and the cover is similar to the WILD THING cover…only a whole lot wetter?
3. One of the series represented in the anthology stars heroes who are warriors, and who each wear a warrior’s mark — what shape in the mark represents “knowledge”?
4. Who is the author most likely to run around in a pair of star-spangled underwear, spinning a lasso?
5. Which author was sprinkled with fairy dust, and has an “immortal” series that continues this December with a DEMON’S KISS?
6. Which story kicks off a brand new urban fantasy series, starring a guy who looks an awful lot like MacGyver?
7. Who writes sharp and witty chick lit novels in addition to her paranormal series?

WILD THING RELEASES TODAY!

New York Times bestselling authors Maggie Shayne and Marjorie M. Liu, and sizzling newcomers Alyssa Day and Meljean Brook discover the wild instinct in everyone with four all-new stories of feral heat. Fans will get swept away by the passions in the unfathomable depths of Atlantis; they’ll follow the shadows that stalk both the living and the undead in a world of vampires and guardian angels; they’ll enter the forbidden world of the demon horde and their willing victims; and they’ll be privy to the secrets of a beautiful animal-whisperer who’s drawn closer to the most suspect of all male animals — man.

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For release day, we cooked up a few questions to ask each other, and we’ll each be posting our answers on our blogs. Click here for the scavenger hunt and contest to win one of four copies of WILD THING! 

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Maggie Shayne’s interview
Marjorie M. Liu’s interview
Alyssa Day’s interview

Here are my answers to some really wonderful and fun questions:

For the DEMON MOON ARC contest! Woot! Romantic Times gave it 4 1/2 stars! And DEMON ANGEL got 3 stars from the same reviewer — so double woot!! Because that means that even if you didn’t really like DEMON ANGEL (you know you’re out there!) DEMON MOON might still work for you. Anyway, just leave a comment and you’re entered in the ARC contest! (Like Savi, I’m easy.)

I’m formatting the really great interview I just did with a proofreader (see, this typo-thing in the contest was relevant!), finishing up my review for Jaci Burton‘s ARC of WILD, WICKED, & WANTON (see the Public Service Announcement if you haven’t already), and working on some really fantastic questions for a special cross-blog interview with all of the authors in WILD THING that I’ll post on the release date (which, in case you didn’t know, is May 1st, the same day that WILD, WICKED, & WANTON releases. So I’m really doing everyone a favor, because now you don’t have to take two trips to the bookstore — this is my contribution to Earth Day … saving you gas and time.)

I’ve gotten in one copy of WILD THING, and boy is it purdy. As soon as the rest come in I’ll be having more giveaways and contests, because as purdy as it is, I really only need one copy for myself. I’m crossing my fingers that it’ll be by the release date and the really fantastic interviews (Maggie Shayne! Marjorie Liu! Alyssa Day!) but if not then we’ll just make do with whenever, or I’ll do it anyway and then send them out when I get them in.

Blergh. I’m sick with a nasty headcold. Still writing, though. I’m pleased with how this version of the proposal is going, and it’ll definitely be out by Monday. Which is good, because I just got the copy-edits back for “Paradise” (in WILD THINGS, with Maggie Shayne! and Marjorie Liu! and Alyssa Day! /shameless crowing) and those are due the 18th, so it’ll be nice to focus on that while doing the final marketing stuff for DEMON ANGEL, instead of switching between stories in my head (I’m not good at that. I have tunnel vision when I’m working on a story.)

I want to thank everyone who’s offered a suggestion in the “name that series!” contest so far — they’ve been great! (How sad is it that I can write a book, but titling it is beyond me? BTW, random aside, my vote for favorite titles have to be: ATLAS SHRUGGED (how freaking fantastic is that?! …even if the author isn’t my cuppa) GRAVITY’S RAINBOW, and THE SOUND AND THE FURY.) The contest will remain open for another week.

I also read a book that I hadn’t intended to read (because I’m short on time this week) but I justified it with an excuse that went something like: my brain needed a break. It needed to … zombiefy for a bit. And since my mom remembered that I’d mentioned I wanted to get Stephen King’s CELL and brought it up for me when she visited this week, I just HAD to read it. Anything else would have been churlish. (Five points to anyone who knows the Johanna Lindsey book I’m kinda-sorta channeling with “churlish” — because I think that may be the only place I’ve actually seen “churlish” used.)

Anyway, CELL. (It’s in the new tall mass market format, and I must say it didn’t bother me or help me. I didn’t notice much difference at all, and I was reading it in pretty bad light. So if the design is for ease of reading and weak-eyed middle-agers … well, I don’t think the new format helps much.)

My sister will spend money for food on books. She picked up BORN IN DEATH last night because, she said, she was walking by the bookstore and she saw it from the corner of her eye and HAD to get it. And then came home and asked me to transfer money to her account so that she could eat today.

I really need to send an e-mail to the berkleyjoveauthors.com site so they can update my bio/upcoming book thingy.

I need to get the contest winners’ books wrapped up and mailed (and Colleen’s!) That might not happen until Friday, though.

I probably won’t pick up the most recent JLA until Friday, either. *sob*

I got the corrected cover for WILD THING (w/o bestseller Meljean). Here’s a small version; here’s a huge version, in which you can see every detail of Nathan Kamp’s nips. That huge version is what my editor sends me, then I just make a bunch of different sizes to have ready to link to when I need it. Only this time, it took me forever to figure out why my browser said the pictures had errors (and why they were so many KBs, even small): they were in CMYK color. So I changed them all to RGB, and they worked.

Oh, and my editor loved my novella for WILD THING. I struggled a lot getting that one out, so that’s good to hear. There’s an excerpt up, btw, if you go here. No spoilers.

I’m still plugging away on the proposal, and I scared myself writing a scene two days ago. That’s a good thing, I think. I’m trying very, very, very hard to keep it simple this time, while still adding to the Guardian world and the overall storyline. I think it’ll work.

But I gotta get back to work.

Woot! I was just on Amazon.com, and I noticed they have a cover for WILD THING up. (I guess this means it really is Wild Thing, with no “s”)

I wonder if the USA Today Bestselling Author thing is wishful thinking? Or does my publisher know something I don’t? Hmm. I’m guessing this is just a first version, because my editor never sent it to me…I wonder if it was even supposed to be sent to Amazon? Weird.

Oh, man. I guess I better update the site again.

OMG. You know how bad it’s going to be if DA doesn’t become a bestseller now and my name has to be removed from the top and put down on the bottom all lonely and stuff? *sob*