The Last God and Sahmara on Sale

To celebrate the upcoming release of The Last God, I've reduced the price of my fantasy novel Sahmara to .99. Get both e-books for .99 each for a limited time!
The Last God - Pre-order on: Amazon / Nook / Kobo/  Also now available in Paperback for $9.95
Sahmara - Amazon / Apple / Nook / Kobo / Scribd / 24 Symbols / Inktera

Abducting the angry and suicidal god of war might not be Logan’s wisest choice, but she’s the weapon that might be able to defeat the army of Matouk, who destroyed his homeworld. If he can show her how to love, they might save each other from the terrors that plague his nights and all of her days.

The Last God is science fiction romance. For those of you wondering about the heat level, my romance is on the fairly tame side. While I enjoy reading hot steamy erotic scenes now and then, I don't write them. My romance is more of the fade to black variety.

Now then... About Logan.

When the angelic face of Matouk appeared on the vids of Hijn, the populace was enraptured by his voice and appearance. Some began to worship him as though he were a god.

Then he started making demands for sacrifices. Threats. His forces filled the skies.

People revolted. Matouk's fury rained down upon them, destroying the colonies that had become cities on Hijn, enslaving the survivors, and taking all he wanted for his own.

Logan Klevo lived through this, but nightmares and horrific flashbacks make him wonder if he can truly call it surviving. Though he's rescued by the crew of the Maxim, Logan feels out of place, a soldier on a ship full of techs. It isn't until he accompanies a few of the crew on a mission to warn the people of Kaldara of their impending demise, that he feels a few moments of peace.

And those brief moments are courtesy of a dying god in his arms. He's not about to let her go.

Coming June 19: The Last God

Now that I can finally breathe. Whew! I just wrapped up the formatting for The Last God, I can take some time to chat.

I totally missed my IWSG post this month. My theme was lacking time. Let's just call that a meta mini IWSG post.

Now then, about this book that's been eating all my time...

The Last God is about a woman who has been the god of war for so long that she's seen and done it all and worn the t-shirt until it turned to dust. The Unlata Kai have done just as much guiding of young races as they have ruling over them and driving them into the ground.

The General is just plain done.

She's been a daddy's girl all her life, doing everything to try to impress a man who has no love for anyone but himself. She's brought his wrath to countless worlds, hunted her fellow Unlata Kai into near extinction, murdered siblings for him. She's even gone so far as to damn her soul. All she's got to show for her efforts is a shiny suit of armor and beautiful city of obedient subjects on a world that's ready to implode.

Her parents have tuned out and the only man she's slightly interested in has joined her in a pact to end her kind. At least he's loyal. Too bad they'll be dead shortly.

All the General needs to do is keep her voice down, the occupants of the throne room calm, and to evacuate the innocent population off Kaldara. As long as the kind and queen remain oblivious on their thrones, the last of the Unlata Kai won't live to see tomorrow.

The universe will be a far more peaceful place.

The last thing she needs is a ship of humans on a mission to warn her parents of Kaldara's imminent demise to land just as the evacuation is underway. It doesn't help that one of them is tall, dark and distracting in ways that have the god of war thinking about taking up a new line of expertise.

The Last God is slated to release on June 19 in both print and e-book. You can pre-order now for only .99

Editing the weekend away

In the season of graduation open houses, I'm spending my weekend doing the final edits on The Last God. It's been through readers. It's been through my eyeballs. Now it's in my ears.

And it's depressing how much the eyeballs miss.




To cope with this tiresome job, I call upon chocolate.

The best part about graduation open house season though is...food. I don't have to cook very much. Lunch has been provided for the past two days and dinner is on the menu for tomorrow. Which is good because the listening method of editing is slower than the reading one. This probably has something to do with why it picks up so many more things that my eyeballs do.

I like to make notes in ink and highlight the area where the change is. Overlooking ink is easy. The orange makes it stand out more. Red ink would also work, but it feels so negative.

Listening has helped pick up on word echos, odd phrasing, extra words, missing words, wrong words, and detail changes I missed making on the last eyeball round.

The cover is done. The blurb is done. Very soon edits will be done and then its on to formatting fun and ordering print copies.

Watch for The Last God on the 19th in e-book and print!



(Wow. My lighting is not that orange, I swear. Dim lights and phone cameras don't mix.)

Twenty-Four Days by J. Murray

Today we're taking a break from talking about editing, writing and unruly characters to celebrate the launch of Jacqui Murray's newest book Twenty-Four Days.

So what is this book about?

World-renowned paleoanthropologist, Dr. Zeke Rowe is surprised when a friend from his SEAL past shows up in his Columbia lab and asks for help: Two submarines have been hijacked and Rowe might be the only man who can find them.

At first he refuses, fearing a return to his former life will end a sputtering romance with fellow scientist and love of his life, Kali Delamagente, but when one of his closest friends is killed by the hijackers, he changes his mind. He asks Delamagente for the use of her one-of-a-kind AI Otto who possesses the unique skill of being able to follow anything with a digital trail.

In a matter of hours, Otto finds one of the subs and it is neutralized.

But the second, Otto can’t locate.

Piece by piece, Rowe uncovers a bizarre nexus between Salah Al-Zahrawi--the world’s most dangerous terrorist and a man Rowe thought he had killed a year ago, a North Korean communications satellite America believes is a nuclear-tipped weapon, an ideologue that cares only about revenge, and the USS Bunker Hill (a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser) tasked with supervising the satellite launch.

And a deadline that expires in twenty-four days.

As America teeters on the brink of destruction, Zeke finally realizes that Al-Zahrawi’s goal isn’t nuclear war, but payback against the country that cost him so much.

Kirkus Review:
A blistering pace is set from the beginning: dates open each new chapter/section, generating a countdown that intensifies the title’s time limit. Murray skillfully bounces from scene to scene, handling numerous characters, from hijackers to MI6 special agent Haster. ... A steady tempo and indelible menace form a stirring nautical tale.

Where can you find this military thriller?

Available at: Kindle US, Kindle UK, Kindle Canada

About Jacqui:

Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy, and the thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and  Twenty-four Days. She is also the author/editor of over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer,  a columnist for TeachHUB, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her books at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.

http://twitter.com/worddreams

http://facebook.com/kali.delamagente

http://pinterest.com/askatechteacher

http://linkedin.com/in/jacquimurray

https://plus.google.com/u/0/102387213454808379775/posts

Cover Reveal for The Last God

If you've been skulking around here between now and November, you'd undoubtedly heard bits and pieces about my current project: The Last God. Well, it's finally almost ready to share with you.

Almost.

While I wait for the last two of my esteemed critique partners to hand over their red ink filled pages so I can complete the touch ups, I figured I'd share the cover with you. I fell in love with this art after spending most of an afternoon searching for cover elements. When we created the cover for Sahmara, it was from five different pieces that we pulled together. This one hit me, the angels sang, and that was it. And so after working some graphical magic to make it just right for the story, I present the cover for The Last God.

Jane has decreed that the time of the Unlata Kai is over. Her race of god-like beings has caused enough chaos, leaving floundering hybrid races and war-ravaged planets throughout the universe. Kaldara, their home, is about to fulfill her wishes. When the planet goes, it will take her and the last of her kind with it.

The crew of the Maxim sets out to warn the leaders of Kaldara of their imminent demise, but instead, witnesses a violent battle between gods. One of them holds knowledge that could restore the Maxim to its full strength. The possibility of a defense against the ruthless army of Matouk that destroyed his homeworld fills Logan Klevo with something he’s been missing, hope.

Abducting an angry and suicidal god might not be a wise choice, but if the god of war can learn to love, they both might discover a future worth living for.