Today, I will be mostly...

...guest blogging with the wonderful, smart and funny Naomi Clark. Who also lives in the Cambridge area, also writes paranormal romance, and also is under thirty (in fact I believe she's younger than me. Go figure.)

On names

Currently, I'm percolating a couple of stories in my head. One of them is set in the Mad, Bad & Dangerous/Almost Human world, and features a demirep heroine and a rather shady hero. She has a name--Elena--but he doesn't.

Why do I have more trouble naming male characters than female? Perhaps because there's a broader range of heroine characteristics, and names to suit, than there are male. I've written heroines who were short or tall, thin or voluptuous, bright or sharp or sweet (well, maybe not that sweet) or clever or clumsy or beautiful or shy. Whereas my heroes tend, broadly, to fall into the tall, muscular, smart, handsome, handy-with-a-weapon and handy-with-a-quip category.

And there are only so many names to suit them. Why is it that I can write a heroine with a daft name and let her grow into it, but can't quite do the same for my heroes? Although I have been known to give them embarrassing names they tend not to use (Tanner, who turned up in Almost Human, is universally known by his surname since he hates being called Leander).

Who was it who said the true test of literary worth was whether a man could name a kitten? I've named eight, and they've all grown into their names. Here's a hint: if you want to turn your male cat gay, call him Tinkerbell (I was six, and I thought he was a girl anyway). I named the next male cat Spike, in an attempt to make him manly, but he turned out to be incredibly beautiful, deadly in a rather elegant way, but really rather fond of his creature comforts and secretly loves his mummy. I realised I'd named him after my favourite vampire--well, he has white hair and eyes that are both yellow and blue--and he'd taken on extra characteristics too. Or maybe I'm just projecting.

His name is Spike. And yes, I seriously considered calling my black kittens Angel and Drusilla.

But back to character names. Some are just overused--the old Predator+Geographical Feature title for a hero (Hawksmoor, Wolfsea, Hipporiver etc). I confess I did once name a werewolf character Wolfe, and gave him a werecat heroine called Kat, but I was being ironic. Honest.

The problem with this guy is that he's a shapeshifter (well, he's a Nasc, if anyone's been reading Almost Human), and his animal is an eagle, or a hawk, or some other kind of raptor. I need a name that fits him.

I like finding names that fit a character, names that sound right out loud. For a hard, harsh character I chose Harker--he's also a man who keeps his ear to the ground, hence 'hark'. For Sophie's mentally agile and emotionally brittle lover I went with Luke Sharpe. It's a fast, cunning name, hard but not brutal, keen, acute, smart. Plus if you have a Northern accent it's actually quite funny. The hero of Almost Human was Dark, because he's dark-eyed and dark-haired, but also dark-souled, tormented and angry. Kett's feckless mate in Mad, Bad & Dangerous was Bael--a demonic name, and a homonym for bail, which is what he often needs to get out of jail. The dangerous, unpredictable mercenary of After the Fall was Carver, a name I didn't even need to think about. He's a man who is, quite simply, lethal, and won't think twice about slitting an enemy's throat (or, as Jayne from Serenity put it: "Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight... or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman, or if I'm gettin' paid - mostly only when I'm gettin' paid.").

So. A name for an orphan boy, born on the streets, a thief and a con, trained as a soldier, educated as a gentleman, working as a mercenary, had his memories stolen, running for his life. Oh, and he can turn into an eagle.

I'm going to end up calling him Hawke, aren't I?

Dawn Rising winner

Slightly late (apologies, I'm late for everything), here is the winner of the Dawn Rising contest. you guys thought up some great powers, but I really like Tracy D's idea--and the trigger is even better!

"I would like the powers of invisibility (is that a word???) My trigger would be each time I felt my pants were too tight… DAG, I would be invisible ALL the time!"

You know what? That's a power I'd like! And yes, invisibility is a word (at least it is in my dictionary). Congratulations, Tracy, your free download of Dawn Rising is on its way.

Meanwhile I've succumbed to the Beast of Christmas. You know, the massive time-sucking battle through the shops, trawling websites for presents you're half-sure don't exist, wasting working hours trying to think of a gift for someone you know slightly know but are still obliged to buy for, wondering how to stay sociable without turning into a drunkard or ballooning up like Violet Beauregard. This year it'll be made even more fun by the builders who reckon they might be able to start next Monday--start pulling down half the house, that is, before it's rebuilt.

Fun! Fun!

I'm ranked higher than Stephanie Meyer.

That is all.

Mad, Bad & Dangerous cover

Look!

And The Twelve Lies of Christmas is at #8 on the Amazon Kindle Bestseller list. It's at #3 on the Romance Bestsellers.

And you can still enter my contest, below, to win a free download of Dawn Rising.

Wheee!

A contest!

Well, it's certainly the week for free books. Not only is my spy-con-rom-com The Twelve Lies of Christmas available free on Kindle all week, I'm also offering something spicier in the form of a free download of Empire: Dawn Rising.

Yes, you can read all about Edward and Callie's hot romance and fight for freedom for absolutely free, by entering my contest. All you have to do is answer one question.

In Dawn Rising, Callie has the ability to trigger an electromagnetic pulse when she orgasms (this is pretty handy if you're fighting an Empire totally reliant on technology, and you're doing it alongside a very hot man).

Callie didn't get to choose her superpower, but you can. Leave a comment on this post telling me what kind of superpower you'd like--and how you'd trigger it.

I'll pick one name at random on Friday 27th Nov to win a free download of Dawn Rising.

Oh, and before I forget: I just discovered this morning that you don't need a Kindle to read Kindle titles. You can download a totally free program from Amazon that allows you to read Kindle format titles on your PC (unfortunately, no Mac or Linux yet). So spread the word! Festive fun and freebies for all!

EDIT: Okay, not freebies for all. Freebies for those who live in the correct geographic area. I don't know what this is, but I know it includes the US, because Amazon.com shows 12LOC like this:

Whereas when I tried to download it, and logged in, it realised I'm in the UK and changed its tune to this:



I'm annoyed now. Perhaps my superpower ought to be removing geographic restrictions.

No, that's so lame.

Good things

...if you like erotic romance: my novella Dawn Rising was released this week. Released, like a bird from a cage! It's the fourth and final installment in the Empire series, which has won awards and stuff. It tells the story of Edward, the prince who could overturn the Empire's despotic rule if only he can get his nerve back, and Callie, who has a very special talent that's key to the revolution--and a very cool way of unlocking it.



...if you have a Kindle: another novella of mine, but not an erotic one this time, will be available FREE from Amazon next week. The Twelve Lies of Christmas is a festive story about a spy and a con artist (because nothing says Christmas like espionage and confidence trickery) and prequels the Sophie Green series of mysteries.

...if you like shoes. My feet were pleased to play host to these on Thursday for the RNA's Winter Party. Pleased, and only a little bruised.

Dawn Rising is released!

You can buy it direct from Changeling Press. It's been a busy few days, what with this release and the RNA Winter Party. More on that later!

While I finish the Dawn Rising trailer

I was going to post the video of one of the songs that heavily inspired the book. However, while it is available on YouTube (in contrast to a lot of music videos, bah), it can't be embedded in my blog.

So, you'll just have to follow this link to see what Empire: Dawn Rising sounds like, as well as what my heroine, Callie, looks like. Go and have a listen to Florence & The Machine's brilliant Drumming Song.

Simply irrational weather

Apparently the weather outside is the 'worst storm of the year'. I can only assume it's much more severe in other parts of Blighty, because here on the inner edge of East Anglia it's just a bit dark and windy. Windy enough to blow over a plastic dustbin, at any rate. Scary stuff. It's even been raining a bit!

Okay, sarcasm aside, it's a great day to be inside. And a couple of things that make it even better are mulled cider and my newly-discovered favourite, pumpkin bread.

There are as many recipes for mulled cider as there are for mulled wine, but here's the one I've been working. It's based on the Finnish glogg (or glogi, or something-with-an-umlaut-I-can't-remember-how-to-type) my mum's friend Rauha makes, and it works equally well with red wine or with cider.

Take a bottle of vodka, and pour out maybe one or two shots (you can drink these later). This is to make room for the spices you'll be adding. These are: a couple of cinnamon sticks, a crushed nutmeg, small handful of cardamom pods and another of cloves, and the grated peel of one orange. Use whole ingredients, not ground as they'll just make it gritty. The most difficult part of this is getting the orange peel inside the bottle!

Put the lid back on and congratulate yourself with a vodka tonic. Leave the bottle for a week (maybe less: watch to see if the cardamoms and cloves have all sunk to the bottom), then it's ready. Pour it through a sieve (you can strain all the spices out if you have a spare bottle, but I tend to leave mine in and just pour it through a tea strainer).

Add it to cider, and heat through--I'd use about a shot of vodka to each pint of cider, but you can make it stronger or weaker as you wish. I've been making it with Waitrose 1% Alcohol Cider, which means it won't get you drunk as quickly. Don't let the liquid boil as the alcohol will all evaporate. Pour into mugs and serve.

Once you've made your glogg it's all ready and waiting to be turned into something wonderful. Keeps for ages (but why wouldn't you drink it?) and can be added to cider, wine, hot Vimto (the BEST thing if you have a cold), or even tea. You could even try adding the spices to brandy instead of vodka. Go nuts.

Speaking of nuts, the feature in a lovely recipe I made the other week. Pumpkin bread! I know in America pumpkins are a much more widely-used ingredient at this time of year, but in Britland we tend to carve them for Hallowe'en and forget about the actual eating part. To that end, there's not much chance of buying canned pumpkin puree: we have to make our own!

It's not hard, though. Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds and fibres. Bake it for 50 minutes at 180C, then let it cool before scooping out the flesh. It comes away very easily. Mash it a bit, and you've got your puree.

For pumpkin bread, you need about 250g of this (less than half a small pumpkin; I used the rest of mine for soup). You also need:

210g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
200g sugar
1tsp baking soda
120ml olive oil
2 eggs (beaten)
60ml water
1/2 tsp each of ground nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice
100g chopped walnuts

Sift together the dry ingredients, then use an electric mixer to whisk them together with the wet ingredients and spices. Stir in the walnuts, then pour into a small greased loaf tin and bake at 180C for 50 minutes (or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean).

It's not the most calorie-friendly food, but then it's not that bad either (f you follow weight watchers, it's about 60 points in the whole loaf; a 1cm slice is about 6 points. You can reduce this by adding fewer walnuts, which are worth about 11 points as I recall).

Spread some Philadelphia cheese on it. Get a mug of hot cider. Laugh at the wind and rain outside.