Thursday, December 19, 2013

Now Available for Pre-Order:)

Just wanted to let everyone know that FOR THE LONGEST TIME, the first in my new Harvest Cove series, is now available for pre-order!  There's no cover displayed yet, though I have updated the book on goodreads with the lower res cover I do have right now.  The book will release on Tuesday, July 1st, and I'm so excited to share it with all of you!  I've actually just had my edits accepted, so we're moving to copyedits, which I expect will go pretty smoothly since I'm kind of a grammar wench to begin with.

In any case, you can go HERE for the Amazon pre-order, and HERE for the B&N pre-order (which appears to only be for Nook right now, not paperback, though it's both at Amazon).

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and a Merry Christmas!

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

For the Longest Time has a cover!

I still stink at blogging. I know this.  BUT!  I have a wonderful thing to show you!  After talking with my editor at NAL today, I've been given permission to show off the cover for this coming July's FOR THE LONGEST TIME, the first in my new Harvest Cove series. Here's the blurb:

For Samantha Henry, it took a ten-year
absence to appreciate the close-knit
New England town with a magic all its own....
Life works in unexpected ways, and after a perfect storm of events leaves Sam high, dry, and jobless, she has to head home to Harvest Cove to regroup. Growing up, she was the town misfit, and a brief high school romance that resulted in heartbreak left her with one realization—she was never going to fit in. But now with the support of her mother and an unexpected circle of allies, Sam starts to wonder if she’s misjudged the town all of these years.

Life has been good to Jake Smith. He transitioned from a popular jock to the town’s veterinarian without any trouble. Sam’s homecoming, however, makes him question the choices he’s made. The sharp-tongued beauty was never a good fit for the small community, but he’s never forgotten her—or how good they were together. While she makes it clear that’s she not about to repeat the past, Jake’s determined to convince her to give him—and Harvest Cove—a second chance.
 
This book will hit shelves the last Tuesday in June, and I'm so excited to share it with readers!  I think one of my strengths as an author is in crafting realistic dialogue that makes people smile, and I feel like I've really been able to showcase that in this book.  Also, I love these characters.  LOVE.  Like, a lot.  I'm editing the book as we speak, and as the outline for #2 was approved today, I've got that in the back of my mind as well.  Lots to do!  I'm incredibly grateful to have the chance to do it, though.  Anyway, the cover.  Here we go...what do you think?

And just for fun, here's a short excerpt...did I mention I'm excited about this book?:)  This takes place shortly after Jake and Sam's second meeting as Jake goes for an evening run with his dog, Tucker.

***

            Jake settled into his rhythm, feeling his muscles warm as he headed down his street and hung a right, towards the park.  The sky was a vibrant canvas of red and pinks, striking against the bold hues of the leaves.  He breathed deeply, savoring the rich scents of earth and wood smoke that could only be fall, and let his mind empty.  Everything fell away as his feet hit the pavement.
            His whole Zen running thing lasted all of three minutes before he was back to replaying his meeting with Sam over and over again.  Since that was by far the least traumatic part of his day, though, Jake figured it was okay. 
            He couldn’t get past her expression, so soft and unguarded, in the moment when he’d realized that not only was he about to kiss her, but that she wanted him to.  Still.  Even after all this time.  He wondered if she was pissed about it now.  Probably, he thought, his mouth curving.  That seemed to be her comfort zone with him, though she kept slipping.  Like when she’d agreed to dinner.
            Not a date, his ass.
            His smile faded as doubt tried to creep in.  What if she was right and they just sat there staring awkwardly at one another?  It’s just a dinner, damn it.  She’s still beautiful, you’re still interested, so now you get to see what happens.  You used to talk.  So you’ll do it again.  No big deal. 
             But he couldn’t remember the longing on her face without thinking that on some level, it was a big deal.  Maybe a really big deal.  Part of him had been hoping that time would have made her seem less interesting, that he could ditch the weird combination of guilt and fantasy labeled ‘Sam Henry’ that he’d been lugging around and finally shake her.
             No dice.  She was the same enigma who’d haunted him off and on for ten years now, except she’d piled on a few layers of some very adult sex appeal in the meantime.  It shouldn’t have made him nervous.  Women didn’t make him nervous anymore, damn it.
             And he could tell himself that until he was blue in the face, but it wouldn’t change the fact that this one did.
             “So what are a hick vet and a cultured artist going to talk about at dinner, Tuck?  You tell me.”
             Tucker looked up at him, his tongue lolling out as he panted, brown eyes full of simple joy.  That look said it all: I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT HUMAN BUT I LOVE YOU AND I LOVE OUTSIDE AND ISN’T THIS GREAT I LOVE RUNNING YAY I’M A DOG!
             “Thanks man,” Jake said.  “That’s deep.”
***
Thanks for letting me share my excitement with you! 
-Kendra
 

Monday, August 26, 2013

Release Day!

Huzzah! (<---it's way classier than yay...sort of)  Today is the book birthday of The Demon's Desire, second in my Hearts of the Fallen series!  I kicked off my blog tour at My Midnight Fantasies, where you can go read a bit about the book (and also read an awesome review).  I'll be all over the place in the next couple of weeks, and I'm giving away a $25 gift card for the winner's choice of Barnes & Noble or Amazon, so be sure to check out my stops.  The full list is HERE...follow along, I like company!  I hope you all love Meresin as much as I do...he's the most tormented of the Fallen in many ways, but that makes his redemption so much sweeter.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Ch-ch-ch-changes

God, has it really been eight months since I posted here?  I'm a pretty craptastic blogger...but you all knew that.  Still, I figured it was about time I let readers know what was going on with me, so settle in and envision me making a grand re-entrance to my blog in sequins and a feathered Vegas-style headdress.  Or, um, not.  Anyway...

So I recognize the fact that I've been pretty scarce around Ye Olde Internets this year, with a brief exception made around the release of The Demon's Song, a digital release through Entangled Covet that marked a return to the world I created back in my 2010 Nocturne, Renegade Angel.  The new series is called Hearts of the Fallen, and the second book, The Demon's Desire, arrives on digital shelves August 26th.  There will be some guest posts around the net tied to this, and I'll certainly keep you posted on where those are.  This book is Meresin and Dru's story, and as I've had a big soft spot for Meresin ever since his appearance in Renegade Angel, I'm really thrilled to be able to share his story at long last!  Pre-order it HERE.  Also, I do want to add that I know some readers were thrown off by the reboot of the series, and I apologize for any confusion.  Essentially re-starting a series that a different book at a different publisher (who then decided to nix the idea of a series) had been intended to start was a new and kind of weird experience for me, and I obviously botched getting the word out as well as I could.  My editor and I did take pains to try and make sure that The Demon's Song could stand alone and work as an entry point, but readers' mileage on that one varied.  I hope, though, now that the world is established, that you'll read on to find out what happens to the other Fallen.  The third book I expect will be out in early spring.  I had to open up a slightly wider gap between releases, since my sanity was starting to suffer!

What else has been going on?  I'll be honest, much of my absence has been because I was trying to figure out "Where do I go from here?" (as well as many other pressing questions like, "Who ate the rest of my potato chips?" and "When was the last time I washed this sweatshirt?").  As you probably know if you follow me at all, the Dark Dynasties series, which I love dearly, was not picked up for a fifth installment by my publisher.  I have every intention of writing Vlad's story to finish the series the way I wanted, but doing it on my own when I have other contracted commitments poses some interesting new problems.  I would like to do it in 2014.  I just need to find the time, and I will share news on progress when I have it.  I was nowhere near unique in finding myself struggling in the last twelve months.  I knew a number of paranormal authors who got dropped from their respective houses, many more talented than I.  The truth is that most publishers aren't buying paranormal right now.  The market has shifted, as it is wont to do.  This doesn't mean that I'm no longer interested in writing it, but it does mean I had to sit down and take stock of my career and where I want to go with it.  And so, change is afoot!

With the encouragement of my awesome agent, Kevan, and driven by deepening angry-immortals-trying-to-kill-one-another burnout, I tried my hand at something I never thought I'd write: contemporary romance.  To my surprise, I enjoyed crafting a story in which people were generally normal, no one got bitten, and I was allowed to write snarky banter uninterrupted by life-threatening situations.  I like doing it the other way, too, but this was novel for me:)  I put together a proposal for a funny, small town contemporary series, and wonder of wonders, it SOLD!  So the Harvest Cove series will begin next August, releasing in paperback and digital from NAL, and I'm basically so excited about it that it's slightly embarrassing.  I'm writing the first book (called For the Longest Time) as we speak, and I really feel like this is the right direction for me to be taking right now.  Do I plan to stop writing paranormal?  No, not entirely.  But writing a little lighter is a breath of fresh air right now, and I hope some of you (many of you, even) will keep on reading me even as I head into something a bit different.  I'm contracted for three books at present, and you better believe I have fingers and toes and whatever else I can find crossed that we go past three.  A girl gets tired of house hopping, and I'd love a chance to sit still and really develop a fictional world for more than a handful of books.

On a related note, I see that there's a pre-order link up on Amazon and B&N for Call of the Wolf, which was intended to be my fourth novelette for Cravings.  Please disregard that, as it isn't happening.  Last week it was decided that what I'd written was too light for the line, and given my current commitments and time constraints, it made more sense to simply cancel the final story rather than find a way to turn what I have into something it really, really isn't.  Since the story is linked to The Wolf's Surrender, my March Nocturne, I do think I'll get it edited up and offer it to readers myself, so hopefully there's some interest in a light story about Kenyon finally finding his mate (and yes, if you've read the book, you might guess who she is).  I like what I wrote, but it isn't a dark erotic short.  And I'll be honest, I've discovered that dark erotic short stories aren't really my strong suit anyway.  They don't have a lot of room for sarcastic humor, and that's always where my characters want to head.  Thus, I will spare you all (and myself) before that part of my work devolves into generic supernatural banging.

So that's where I'm at.  This winter was for figuring out how I need to structure my writing schedule so I don't die (that was ugly, since I am horrible at saying "no" and "I can't" and excellent at taking on too much), for finding a direction that makes some sense--basically, having your usual writerly existential crisis that involved a lot of junk food and leaning on family members.  They were sports about the whole thing, probably because I'm generally a very positive person when not clinging to the edge of the Cliffs of Insanity...and the latter doesn't happen very often.  This is a tough business.  Not whining, just the truth.  Careers in writing; not for the faint of heart.

All this said, what can you expect to see from me going forward?  Well, there's the upcoming release.  This spring, as I said, you can expect the third in the Hearts of the Fallen series, which is about the very sexy Murmur (I like Murmur a LOT).  And after that, For the Longest Time, which will hit shelves the last Tuesday of July (making it technically an August release...yeah, publishing is weird).  My website will be getting a redesign this spring as well, sometime before the contemporary releases.  I'd like it to reflect the fact that I write in more than one subgenre, so I expect it'll be a little less, you know, RAWR!  Enjoy the shirtless tattoo guy while you can.  His days are numbered;)

I'll try to blog a little more often...no promises, but I will TRY.  I feel pretty boring most of the time, really!  But thanks to all of you who keep reading the stories I write.  I love knowing that I have readers who enjoy my work...it makes the fits my characters sometimes give me well worth it!  I may be quiet, but I'm always working, and I figure that's the most important thing. 

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned! There's always more to come:)  

 

Thursday, January 10, 2013

WINNERS!

I threw all the names in a hat this morning, despite the fact that giving me scissors this early is generally a bad idea, and pulled the following names:

Kase
Christy
wwalker
hitzss454
Alba

PM me either on facebook or at kendra@kendraleighcastle.com and I'll send out your signed copies of IMMORTAL CRAVING!  I'll be doing this again, too, around release time, so keep an eye out.  Thanks to all of you who came over!

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Lovely, Lovely Books to Give Away

Hey, look what I found on my doorstep!  A box chock full o' Immortal Craving! 
Hmm, what will I do with it.  Hug it?  Stuff my bookcase?  No, wait, that's already overfull...I KNOW, I'll give five copies away!  Comment and tell me who your favorite character in the Dark Dynasties series is so far, and why (I was trained as an English teacher, sorry...old habits die hard), and I'll choose five of you to get signed copies of the tale of Tasmin and Bay before it hits shelves on the 29th of this month.

I'll announce the winners tomorrow morning...entries accepted until I get my butt in gear to do that:)  FREE BOOKS!  WOO!

Happy Wednesday!