Sink Your Teeth Right Through My Bones, Baby

Hey, everyone!

Here I am at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Las Vegas, and I haven't been outside since Sunday evening! I'm anticipating returning to Texas exhausted, pale and squinting. It'll be great.

While I'm here, Dreamspinner Press has been selling Aiden's Angel for $1.00. (Here it is on Amazon.) I volunteered for this in the hopes it might mean that people would actually know the book existed.

Apparently it worked, because I just got an email from All Romance EBooks saying it hit their bestseller's list. :D I am very, very happy.

It'll be on sale until sometime on the 17th, in case any of you would like to read about magic, angst and angels for less than a cup of Starbucks coffee to go with it.

I'll be back online for reals starting Monday. Right now I need to eat something before the next event. I'm thinking a ridiculous Las Vegas buffet might be in order.

I'm just going to say it: this post has no redeeming social value whatsoever, and is entirely AmyCat's and foxfireflamequeen's fault. Because blaming people is fun.

It's their fault because FoxFire said I should watch the 2015 Man from U.N.C.L.E. movie, which I'd wanted to do anyway. But still. And AmyCat asked me if it was any good.

Yes, AmyCat, it was good. Not going to lie, though. The best part of the movie is this guy:

Plus, he's tall enough to see space.

Meet Illya Kuryakin, as played by Armie Hammer with those big, soulful eyes. He has an admirable work ethic and breathtaking anger management issues, as perfectly illustrated in his and Napoleon Solo's (played by Henry Cavill) first conversation.

In short, he is an absolute, giant bae. This is almost literally the conversation I had with my husband while watching that scene in the cafe:

Me: I had no idea Henry Cavill was that hot.

Husband: That's Armie Hammer. Henry Cavill's the other one.

Me: The hot one is Armie Hammer?

It was a reasonable error, because Henry Cavill is blandly good looking and I'd only seen Armie Hammer when he was blandly good looking in The Lone Ranger, where he was upstaged by Johnny Depp and a horse. Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger was fine. Pleasant. I'd go so far as to say not unattractive. But definitely nothing to write home about. Pretty much like the entire Lone Ranger movie.

Illya, however, has an accent, painful backstory and mental health concerns. And he doesn't lose fights. Ever. He's perfect.


Yes, in the second one you saw him push a motorcycle frame off himself, then carry it down a hill and throw it at someone. That's not his only super power either. In the beginning of the movie, Illya dodges bullets (as you do), runs down Solo's car on foot and then rips the trunk hood off with his bare hands. But it was the motorcycle-toss that got me thinking. Specifically about this guy:

And especially this one:

Here's the thing--it never made sense for me that the KGB/Red Room/Hydra would only create one Winter Soldier, or stop trying to perfect their version of the Super Soldier serum after it worked on Bucky Barnes. Even if you go with Bucky having global amnesia when the Russians find him (as in the comics), they go to a hell of a lot of trouble with building a memory erasing machine just for one guy. And we know from season two of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that there's more than one way to skin a cat make someone happy to comply via brainwashing.

So I've decided that Illya Kuryakin is another Winter Soldier.

Oh, for sure he's not in the same league. He's not about to walk off bridges or kick guys into jet engines. But unlike the original, Illya can act like an ordinary human, albeit one with extraordinary talents, because he has memories. The Winter Soldier is the ruthless, unstoppable stuff of nightmares because he's more a weapon than a man. Illya Kuryakin is one of the best spies the Soviet Union ever produced, because he's still a person. He can work in a team; he can have emotional ties; he doesn't have to stay in the shadows like a ghost. And if he risks falling out of his programming, all his handlers have to do is kindle a reset via psychotic episode, by reminding him of his shameful family history. A family history that of course never actually happened.

And if that doesn't work, there's always the chair.

The canon fits beautifully, as far as I'm concerned. Illya and Bucky are even around the same age, give or take one of them being frozen for a few years. I can easily imagine the Winter Soldier training Illya. I can certainly imagine the two of the becoming friends. That is, as long as they could remember each other. Because there is no part of the Winter Soldier's history that isn't tragic. Then again, even without Hydra and the Red Room, Illya's story is pretty tragic too. And fandom can't ever have too many tragic super powered Russians, am I right?

I'm totally right.

Whoop! There it is!



Available (as of early this morning, actually--blame my spending most of the afternoon fighting uselessly with Adobe about Photoshop Elements 14 on why I'm only putting this up now) at these following fine online retailers:

Dreamspinner
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Kobo
Barnes & Noble
Google Play
All Romance eBooks

I'm also running a contest over at Tumblr, for those who may be interested. :D

Thank you kindly for your time and attention. I'm going to go back to making quiet dolphin noises now.

Yes it is! For only $3.00! Check out my nifty post about it here.

Or you can link directly to Dreamspinner Press here, if you prefer. :D I'm totally open minded like that.

---This is hilarious because it makes perfect sense.

---You buy pants and a 'SSR' tee-shirt just so you can dress your kid like this for FanExpo Canada:

(He's trying to 'look weak' as pre-serum Steve Rogers, not actually sulking.)

Even though the kid is not a MCU fan. (Isn't that why we have kids, though? To dress them up in adorable costumes?)

---You're going to FanExpo Canada, even though you live in Texas.

---You're hoping to get a picture of your kid dressed as Skinny!Steve with Hayley Atwell.

---You spend most of your Sunday making a magnetic shield harness and impulse-buy foam weapons so your kid can also be a 'Dragonslayer' at FanExpo Canada.

That foam shield you can barely see is attached to the re-purposed martial arts belt with magnets. Because I am just that obsessive good.

As you've probably guessed, I'll be in Canada until September 8, getting my geek on at the FanExpo. I'll try to remember to take pictures.

First off, the official song of the Pan/Parapan Am Games in Toronto! I don't think the majority of Americans even know this is happening, but the Pan Am Games are freaking huge. (Here's some more information.) I don't even think the opening ceremonies will be shown here. I don't get why the U.S. doesn't seem to care about this, I really don't, especially since the U.S. will probably clean up in the medals like always. And yet it's like it doesn't exist down here. Crazy.

But, the song is truly wonderful. (Start at 0.57 seconds if you don't want the preamble, or there's a music-only version here.) I think I've listened to it about 100 times.



If addictive, feel-good music isn't your thing, a few days ago a spontaneous memorial was created for a raccoon when the city of Toronto didn't send anyone to pick up the poor creature's corpse. I'm posting a link because it's such perfect, passive-aggressive Toronto humor (and I laughed and then felt bad, but kept laughing).

No one was disrespectful to the corpse, unless you count anthropomorphism and naming it 'Conrad'.

Wow, posting twice in one week! Luckily it's not actually the apocalypse.

Aiden's Angel is now available from Dreamspinner Press and Amazon.com. Dreamspinner will have an excerpt soon, but you can use the 'look inside' function for Amazon and read the first chapter and part of the second, in case you'd like to check it out. Which you totally would, because I'm awesome.

Now, I'm a bit late with my stupidly easy contest because my husband broke his arm and things have been hectic and horrible because of it for a good while and I was barely online. But I'm going to remedy that right now!

He could've used one, come to think.

And like I said, stupidly easy--The first four people to comment with their email addresses will get a PDF version of the novella. Just make sure you alter the email a little so you won't attract cooties bots. Such as:

awesome.person AT awesomemail DOT com.

There you go! Stupid easy, right?










Hopefully I'll get more than four comments.

The longer I don't post, the harder it is to think anyone might want to read any of my ridiculousness. You know how it is. (Or maybe you don't, in which case you are awesome.)

But! I do have some nifty stuff to mention, so I figure I should actually, you know, mention it. So here goes:

Dreamspinner Press, my favorite online purveyor of fine quality gay romance, is offering 50% off all of their in-stock paperbacks for the month of April! This includes my novel Black Hawk Tattoo, which is pretty great.

I also have a new novella coming out in the beginning of May (I know I've mentioned it before but it's still totally \o/), which I'll talk about more once I have the cover design. It's called Aiden's Angel because it has an angel in it, in case you were wondering if the title was a coincidence. It is not.

Another cool thing is that I'm going to the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention (May 12 - 17)! It's in Dallas, and it looks like it'll be a lot of fun. I'm also nervous because I'll have to actually talk to people about how I have a novella out.

Any of my flisties going to be there? I'd love to meet up with you. :D

Last but not least, on the fanish side, Spring Sign Ups are open for intoabar! I freaking love this community--where else can you have Bucky Barnes meet Applejack the Pony? Nowhere else, that's where. I've already signed up (they close April 5, Best-Beloveds, so get in on it!), and I can almost guarantee that my entry this year will have an even less likely pairing. I can't wait. :D

Never heard of them? Of course you haven't!