The Iron Duke is a RT Book Reviews Top Pick! Whee! My first solo Top Pick! From the review:

“…a high seas/airborne adventure that’s filled with zombies, pirates and deadly betrayal. Along with the pulse-pounding adventure, there’s plenty of seriously sensuous sizzle for readers to enjoy.”

Over the weekend, an Iron Seas/steampunk Q&A that I did with fellow Rose City resident and writer Christy Carlyle showed up on the Portland Examiner site. You can read more here.

*Contest closed at 194 entries*

It’s that time again! I have ten (10) ARCs of THE IRON DUKE to give away on this site. No hoops to jump through — you just have to comment before midnight on Thursday, August 26th to enter. But! there is a small catch.

These are advance review copies, and I’d really love it if they were used as such. So if you win one, please review it somewhere by the week of October 5th: on your blog, on an online bookseller’s site, Goodreads or Library Thing, wherever. I’m not asking for positive reviews, or even detailed reviews — just reviews. If you don’t think you can read it by October, please pass on these advance copies; I intend to give away several final copies when the book is released, so you can try again, then. (If you want to be reminded of the release, you can sign up for the Postcard Mailing List or the Email Newsletter.)

From this box to your hot little hands!

About the ARCs: these are the yellow-covered bound copies, and are copy-edited, but they haven’t gone through that final proofreading pass. That means that there are more errors than in a final version, and that some dialogue, sentences, and descriptions are different than will be in the final version. There are no substantial differences in plot, characters, or any of the scenes. If you have any questions while reading, I’ll be more than happy to answer and/or send you the corrected passage, if applicable.

About THE IRON DUKE: This is the first full-length novel in my steampunk romance series, The Iron Seas. To read a description and an excerpt, go here. To learn more about steampunk, click here. To find out about “Here There Be Monsters,” the novella that kicked off the series in the anthology BURNING UP, go here.

So, the rules: Comment by 11:59:59 PM Pacific time on 8/26/2010 for your chance to win. Ten winners will be selected randomly using random.org, and their names posted on this blog 8/27/2010. Only one entry per ISP address. The contest is open to international readers. No purchase necessary to enter, but a good faith effort to review the book by the release date is deeply appreciated. Odds of winning depend on number of entries received. Void where prohibited.

the sampler

I forgot to mention that there is an excerpt that starts on Chapter 1 and includes part of Chapter 2 at the end of Demon Blood. The same excerpt is featured in the free paranormal sampler that Berkley has been distributing at conferences (and that might be in bookstores soon? I’m not exactly sure how wide the distribution is). That excerpt has been edited for space and is missing big chunks of Mina & Newberry’s drive from the ball to the Iron Duke’s estate, during which we learn more about the world and the duke himself, so you won’t want to skip to Chapter 2 when you pick up The Iron Duke.

The excerpt at the back of Burning Up starts at Chapter 2 and ends after the first scene.

So I’ve finally added an excerpt to the site — for those of you who have read the previous two excerpts, the first part isn’t new, but the second part is. It starts at Chapter 2 and continues on through the next scene.

*I will have some of these samplers at the Powell’s signing in September — but if you have Demon Blood, then you have the same excerpt, anyway.

So yesterday on Twitter, @kazmahoney posted this:

http://twitpic.com/2c5szo – For @meljean – dude, I have found your new book’s spiritual home in London.

The picture, if you don’t want to click, is this:

a pub in Victoria Station -- where are the bars on the windows?

Which is, of course, really in reference to this guy:

The Duke of Wellington

and not this one:

But I realized that I should probably mention, at some point, that YES — my guy is called the Iron Duke (partly) as a deliberate nod to the real one. Wellington had Waterloo; Trahaearn had the Horde tower. I gave Trahaearn a statue and iron bars for the same reason — and don’t forget the title, of course. (The real equivalent of Trahaearn’s square, however, is named after another battle — which doesn’t exist in Iron Seas history — and has Nelson’s statue, not Wellington’s, so the parallel isn’t slavish. Their political leanings aren’t really the same, either.)

Of course, the “Iron Duke” name fits him in other ways, but you’ll have to read the book to know that one.

Then I had a total WHOA moment. Because @kazmahoney is also Karen Mahoney, who has a YA novel coming out next year called:

The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney

Twilight Zone music began to play in the background. And I realized…

It’s a total convergence of IRON!

What does it mean? What does it mean?! Oh my god. Double iron all the way across the pond!

*Okay, not really. Just a terrible pun.

Well, after years and years of hoping that I’d someday write a steampunk romance, the day is here: BURNING UP is out, and the novella “Here There Be Monsters” launches my new series, The Iron Seas. I hope you all love it!

Here are the winners of the quickie contest yesterday, as picked by random.org:

#70 Hailey Edwards
#53 Camille
#61 Meljean Brook (didn’t follow rules; posted repeatedly)
#23 Donna S.
#33 Nicole M.
#35 Marg
#17 Lizzielvr
#71 CupK8
#13 Megan (disqualified for being my sister)
#32 Meljean Brook (already owns a copy, the greedy wench)
#19 Aileen
#48 Sandra
#59 Myranda

Congratulations!

I’ll e-mail each of you by tomorrow morning. If you don’t receive an e-mail, check your spam folder, or contact me with your address.

And because I’m almost sick with anxiety, now I think I’m going into hiding — or at least sticking my head in the sand. I’ll be lurking on my blog here, but … uh, oh god. How about an excerpt? This is from Chapter 2:

The jokes began as soon as Ivy ducked her head beneath the pianist’s lacy pink skirts. Rolling over onto her back, she lay on the musician’s raised wooden platform and looked up into the gears that formed the automaton’s guts. Luckily, this wouldn’t take long—just a broken tooth on the deadbeat escapement that timed the motion of the feet, and a worm gear out of alignment. She worked, trying to ignore the men doing their best to make the little town of Fool’s Cove earn its name. By the time she’d repaired the escapement, every Hans, Stefan, and Jozef with two brain cells and a drink in his hand had joined in, offering tips for oiling a woman up—including Klaas, the tavern’s owner.

She should have quoted him a higher price.

I’ve added Iron Seas info to the FAQ page (mostly reprinting my What is steampunk? post and answering whether the books will stand alone.) But the other topic about which I’ve been asked a few times is the alternate history.

It’s a funny thing about alternate history — none of the characters in the book know about the differences (and most of them don’t even know about those moments when everything changed). No one says, “Oh, if only Batu hadn’t taken control of the Mongol Horde, and the Polo brothers had met with Kublai Khan” in the course of the story.

Anyway, it’s there now, and really only describes the very first changes that happened to the world (we don’t actually see much of the Horde in the novella or The Iron Duke, just the result and aftermath of these changes. The history given in the FAQ is info that matters in the same way that Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence matters — that he did is one of the reasons why I live the way I do now, but the fact itself also doesn’t figure in a significant way in my daily life*).

I have maps and other info that I’ll put up later which better detail where people have settled in the New World and a few of their significant historical events (they didn’t just fight the Horde, but also warred for territory and trade routes, and the French revolution didn’t exactly end the same way, for example.) None of this is necessary to understand the world and the stories — anything necessary for understanding should be in the books — but I just think it’s fun info to have, like little extras.

I’m hoping that as the series continues *crosses fingers* that I’ll be able to move around the world, and slowly illuminate the history and changes that have taken place in those locations and to those people — that way the world will never go stale, and there’s always somewhere new to explore. But we’ll see

–
*There was no Declaration of Independence in Iron Seas history.

You know this means a giveaway is coming soon.

So, author copies for Burning Up came today. I’m also currently looking over the typeset pages for The Iron Duke, and making the final corrections before that book is printed for its October release.

Three guesses who "His Bastard Grace" is.

It’s a little strange. I haven’t been this nervous about a release since … Demon Moon, I think. Every release comes with its butterflies fluttering around the gut, hoping that the book does well, obsessive stat checking, and so on. And I thought I was doing okay with the Iron Seas launch. But now these books are in my hands, they’re on the verge of being released, and I’m on the verge of vomiting. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find out it’s a virus (or I’m pregnant*), but right now, I blame the steampunk. It’s been sitting in my head for so many years, and under contract for almost two, and now it’s almost here.

Ah, god. DEEP BREATHS.

Phew.

–
*Dear Mom: I’m not pregnant. Sorry.

So, this is the almost-final cover to THE IRON DUKE. If you saw the prelim version in the Berkley fall catalog, you’ll notice the changes are basically that he’s bigger and dirtier…just the way I like him.

The background will be changed a little (they are adding an airship) but since it’s a small alteration and may be a while before we see the final version, I’ve been given the go-ahead to post this.

(click to embiggen)

And just the front cover, w/o the back:

(click to embiggen)

Ana at the Book Smugglers wrote an early review of my novella, Here There Be Monsters, for Steampunk Week II.

And last night at around 3 a.m., I sent her a guest post about steampunk romance that’s supposed to go up on Saturday (if it’s Saturday, click here!) Last night was kind of hazy: I remember a lot of caffeine, and cackling maniacally after taxes and a cruddy writing day, so all bets are off for that post. (And there will be a giveaway with it — not one of my books, but it’s steampunk.)

Today (Friday!) I’ve got a post up at Odd Shots, talking about book signings, with pictures from different signings, and a book to give away that I bought at a signing: Patricia Briggs’s SILVER BORNE. Drop on by, and comment on my ever-changing hair. Or, you know, just talk about whether or not you’d go to a signing.

I’m getting back to writing. Another 3 a.m. and a caffeine IV is calling my name.

…and here is another post that could have probably just been on Twitter.