First of all, I loved hearing your favourite werewolf stories. I’ve added the ones my library has to my wishlist or holds, and requested the rest of them.
I know you don’t usually hear from me on a Saturday, but tomorrow is the equinox and I’m commemorating the day by having A Riff of Retribution available for FREE as part of this Fall Equinox Book Fair. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time this book has been available for free, and the last time it’ll be free for a while, so now’s the perfect time to pick it up. And as a bonus, you can get A Chant of Chains for 0.99$ too.
https://sffbookblast.com/event/
Hale was never really supposed to have his own series. At first, he and Aleksandr were just names of guys Midnight Fury was friends with in Heavy Metal Magic. But when I wrote A Measure of Midnight, I needed them to fill a bigger role.
And then it just escalated from there.
I’ll be the first to admit that this series isn’t for everybody. It isn’t the traditional urban fantasy, and not just because the main character happens to be gay.
I don’t usually read reviews on my books, but I came across this one by fellow author Archer Kay Leah and I wanted to share it because Archer so clearly understood the point in a way that legitimately brought tears to my eyes. I’ve come back to it every single time I’ve felt discouraged in continuing this series.
Real talk for a second.
All of my books are deeply personal. I put little bits and pieces of my heart into every single one of them. If I counted the hours that went into everything I’ve written, I would probably lose my mind. Heavy Metal Hunters is probably the one that I’ve put most of my heart into. Even another reviewer said that, “it felt to me like the author cared very much about their characters.” And it’s true. I love the characters in this series so much.
This is a series about two musicians who decided that the only reasonable thing to do upon learning that monsters are real is to start hunting them, but it’s so much more than that. It’s also a series about coping with grief for the life you could have had, and finding things to that make living worth it when you're already mourning yourself, and the power music has to heal emotional wounds. It’s about finding people who see you for the mess that you are and love you for it anyway, about moving forward and forcing yourself to treat yourself with the care and kindness you don’t think you deserve. It’s about learning that feeling broken doesn’t that mean you are. It’s about love and hope and recovering from trauma.
It’s the series I wrote while my life and my body were falling apart, when I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to pick myself up again. (I’m doing much better now, and I’m the healthiest and happiest I’ve ever been.) It’s a love letter to the people who looked out for me when I didn’t want to look out for myself.
And, most importantly, it’s about hitting a vampire in the face with an electric guitar while Norwegian black metal plays in the background.
So, anyway, consider grabbing book one in Heavy Metal Hunters for free this weekend, and book two for 0.99$.