Jamie Leigh Hansen

@ Amazon.com
@ BN.com
@Smashwords.com

When The Murder King’s Woman was originally published in The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2, I was so excited. I sat right there in Barnes and Noble, taking pictures of the pretty cover.

The Murder King’s Woman is about Mary, a human girl whose family was killed during a family camping trip when she was a child. The rogue vampire responsible for destroying her life was hunted and killed by no less than Sebastian, the Murder King himself. Leading his warrior Crows, a mix of vampires and werewolves, Sebastian and the Murders purpose is to hunt and eradicate the rogues of paranormal kind, keeping their existence secret and bringing safety to their races – it is not to raise the children of human victims. But Mary was too old, her trauma too ingrained, for her to forget. Even with help. And she was too young to be left to her own devices. Mary was brought home and raised among them, the only human to live among them. But now Sebastian has been taken and the only chance he has is the human pet no one believes in.

As I looked at the pretty pages, this nagging feeling that had been pulling at me all year returned. Mary wasn’t finished telling me her story. She’s a strong woman with definite plans for her future and just enough of a past for it to haunt her. So I started writing that day. When I finished the sequel, The Murder King’s Summons, I learned another important fact. I still wasn’t done.

Damn mouthy character hasn’t given me peace since. LOL Therefore, we have reached a compromise. I will write Mary’s journey piece by piece and release it in digital form. The sequel has now become Murder Tales 2: The Murder King’s Summons, and will be released later in December 2011. Keep a look out for:

www.TheSanctionChronicles.com

The first monthly installment of The Sanction Chronicles will be available for sale September 17th.

Win a first chapter critique from one of five multi-published, award-winning, bestselling authors!
Do good. Feel good. And get something good in return!

Author Heather McCollum is fighting Ovarian Cancer. To show appreciation for folks who donate to support “Heather’s Warriors” on the upcoming walk to fund a cure, her writer friends have organized a critique raffle.
You could win one of five critiques being offered by
Avon author Katharine Ashe – first chapter critique (up to 25 pages)
Nocturne author Cynthia Cooke – first chapter critique (up to 25 pages)
Berkley/St. Martins author Cindy Holby/Kassy Tayler – first chapter critique (up to 25 pages) Berkley author Virginia Kantra – first chapter critique (up to 25 pages)
Harlequin author Emilie Rose – first chapter critique (up to 25 pages)

How to enter in three easy steps:
1. Go to “Critiques for Heather” http://dccc.convio.net/site/TR/Ovarianwalk/OvarianAwareness?px=1060499&pg=personal&fr_id=1090

2. Click “Make a donation.”
Make a secure on-line donation of at least $5.00.(each $5.00 online donation = 5 virtual raffle tickets)
Be sure to enter a “Recognition name” (your name or an identifiable nickname).

3. Send an e-mail to
critiques@virginiakantra.com. (There’s a direct link on the site!)
Type RAFFLE in the e-mail’s subject line.
In the body of the email, please include your Recognition name, the number of virtual tickets purchased (dollar amount of donation), and which author(s)/critique prize(s) you would like to be entered for.

ALL proceeds support ovarian cancer research at Duke University Medical Center, where Heather is receiving treatment.
Winners will be drawn/notified/announced the day after the walk, Sunday, September 18, 2011.
Want to support Heather without entering the raffle?
Follow the same link and donate WITHOUT sending an email.

For more information, please visit and like Heather’s SHOUT Against the Whisper Campaign on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/SHOUTagainsttheWhisper

Craig and I often get caught by different ads and commercials for tv shows. What looks interesting? Quite often it all is interesting, downright fascinating. The problem comes from schedules. How many of our parents and grandparents, and for years, us and our children had to make sure we were home by 7 or 8 for the beginning of evenings TV shows. And so many stories captured our attention, we would fill three or four evenings a week with shows.

Yeah. And our news is going nuts with tales of obesity and sedentary Americans. Which, there is a point, but having a limit on how many shows we watch had some really bad consequences.

We’d get into one show and when new ones came out, we couldn’t watch them because they were on at the same time on different channels. So the newer shows suffered a lack of viewership in the realms of numbers that made the producers happy and were subsequently canceled.

Now, thanks to TV on DVD, Netflix, Blockbuster, and Hulu, (not to mention all the other outlets), there are hundreds of unfinished stories out there. Thousands of finished stories.

For instance, we just got through John Doe. An engaging story, a mystery about a man who wakes up naked  in the middle of woods with no knowledge of who he is, but strangely knows everything else. It lasted for one season. 21 episodes and ended on one heck of a cliffhanger.

Luckily, in the case of John Doe, producers put out a statement of what was supposed to happen in the end. The answer to the riddle. Kind of. And while it is good to have an answer to the riddle, we lose the magic of the process. The growing characterization that takes place in each episode builds to that final answer, so it makes more sense, is more well-rounded and wraps up all threads.

But, the problem is each network wants ratings. And they aren’t happy with a few million people. They want everyone to tune out of their lives and tune into their station, all at the same time.

Really? Is this even possible? No. People have different interests. They want to watch different shows on different channels on their own time. When they don’t have work, school, sports and basically, life events deciding their schedule.

Intro streaming media. Any show at any time in any order. It’s all about the story.

But, how many of those stories are half done or worse, barely introduced? How many unfinished stories will we carry around, filling our heads with thoughts and questions?

What’s more, publishers do the same. They want ever rising sales numbers or story series  never end. And readers are left wondering. How would it have all ended?

The good news is that authors, who often have those same uncompleted stories in their heads, are now able to self-publish pretty easily and make their stories widely available. Now it’s just a matter of finding them amid all the scammers, pirates and lazy people who just want to string enough words together they can call it a book or be published “without ever writing a word”. Looks like readers will need to be educated buyers.

I wrote the first round robin introducing readers to the intriguing world of Sanction, NH. In this short story, four male, teen werewolves are trying to beat the other teams in their pack to be the first to catch the girl witches in their annual summer celebration as they dance and chant and, hopefully, catch them doing so naked. In the end, one of the three options for what they do see was left open to voting for how the second round robin would open.

This week round robin #2. Check out how it opened and vote for how you think it should end.

www.TheSanctionChronicles.com