giveaways!

Ashes of a Black Frost (11/1) | The Shattered Vine (11/3)
Coming soon:

drey's Giveaway Policy

FTC Disclosure: I am an affiliate at IndieBound, The Book Depository, and Amazon, and any purchases made by clicking on covers or links here may result in monetary compensation.

July's FEATURED AUTHOR: Something a Little Different...

July 27, 2011
Our Featured Author for July, Kelly Meding, stops by this lovely Wednesday to share a lil' something with us... Read on!

And Now For Something A Little Different…

First, I just wanted to extend another thank you to drey for inviting me to the blog this month. It's been a blast, and I hope everyone reading has enjoyed my ramblings. I have one more for you, in the form of this post.

Since the majority of my blogging this month has been about my Dreg City series and the 8/2 release of ANOTHER KIND OF DEAD (#3), I wanted to use this time to chat a little bit about my brand-spanking new series coming out in the fall.

The MetaWars series is a combination of sexy urban fantasy and superhero fiction. The first book, TRANCE, finds the now-adult children of the world's last superheroes living powerless and alone—until all of their powers suddenly return. And it's not just the heroes who get their powers back, it's the villains, as well. These newly-activated heroes must come together again to find out who stole their powers in the first place, why they were given back, and thwart the plans of an old enemy who seeks to destroy them. Plus, they are dealing with an un-trusting public, feds who don't always tell the whole truth, and more than their fair share of repressed emotional baggage.

Instead of rambling on about the series and how I came up with it (I did that in a post on my own blog back in June), I thought I'd offer a nice little snippet of the book, instead. The selection is from Chapter Five. Our heroine, Teresa, and hero, Gage, have made their way to the old hero headquarters in Los Angeles, where everyone is beginning to assemble. On the journey to L.A., they survived their first run-in with a super-villain named Specter, and the fight landed Teresa in the Medical Unit.

In the scene, Teresa and Gage are talking with another old classmate named William, who was already at the HQ when they arrived.

*#*

I asked, "Who is Dr. Seward?"

"He's on the MHC's payroll." [William replied]

Figures. MetaHuman Control was a self-contained subdivision of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, specializing in (according to them) monitoring the most dangerous "firearms" in the world. Currently defunct, MHC had been organized over a century ago, in the 1960s, and had bankrolled the Rangers for decades, providing us with the finances to police the Banes, information on their whereabouts, and a pretty nifty HQ. Throughout the Meta War, they stood by the Rangers. After the war and the loss of our powers, they hid us to protect us from an angry public. Or so they said.

William continued. "After what happened on Wednesday night, ATF called in some of the people who used to work for MHC. The ones not retired or transferred out of ATF, anyway, which is only a handful. They're also working on locating the rest of the us."

Us. The others were alive. Or suspected to be alive. So far, we had three out of the twelve of us who'd survived the massacre in Central Park. My mind swirled with the new information, trying to store the important bits away for later scrutiny. I was too hungry to concentrate right now. And I still didn't recognize the name Seward.

"I don't suppose this Dr. Seward has a theory on why I've got different powers?" I asked.

"I'm sure he has a theory," William said. "He won't say anything until he's certain, and in this business—"

"It's hard to be certain of anything." Great, I got the dubious honor of being the group oddball. "Is anyone else here?"

"Renee Duvall and Marco Mendoza have found their way," William said. "We're having trouble finding the other seven."

Okay, five out of twelve. And Renee was one of them. I couldn't help a small smile and a pang of curiosity about my old friend. How had she managed for fifteen years? Blue skin is a lot harder to hide than purple hair.

"How about a theory on why we all reactivated in the first place? Does Dr. Seward have one?" I didn't have one of my own, so I wanted to hear what the eggheads thought. They were paid to analyze, not me. I wasn't being paid at all, and after missing three days of work, I was certainly fired from my two remaining jobs.

William and Gage looked at each other. I couldn't read their expressions, just that they'd had this conversation before. "No one is sure," William said. "Right now it's all theory, since we don't know why we lost our powers in the first place."

"Lost implies that they were misplaced, or that we were somehow active in their removal, which we weren't. They were taken, not lost."

William nodded, but didn't reply. An awkward silence fell over the room, interrupted only by the bleep of the pulse monitor.

"Are you hungry?" Gage asked.

"Famished. How's the room service around here?"

"It's decent," William said. "I'll go see what I can scare up for you. Just try not to get out of bed until Dr. Seward comes to see you. Okay?"

I snapped off a mock salute. He departed, pulling the door shut behind him. Gage perched on the edge of the bed near my knees. "Thank you, Teresa."

"For what?"

"For saving my life."

*#*

I hope you enjoyed the snippet! It was hard deciding on one particular scene, but I liked this one because it gives you a bit of background information on the world and its history. TRANCE releases October 25 from Pocket.

Thank you so much for visiting us this month, Kelly!!  I hope you've had a good month here...  Y'all, I hope you enjoyed the snippet from Kelly's Trance!

1 comments:

holdenj said...

Thanks for sharing the snippet of Ch 5 Kelly! I think it's definitely made me interested in keeping an eye out for Trance in a couple months.

Post a Comment

have a thought to share? I love comments!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

what's here...


Powered by Blogger Widgets

history...