My Lady Quicksilver is on sale!
First up, My Lady Quicksilver is on sale for only $1.99 US for a limited time! The sale appears to occur in most countries, though please check before you purchase, as the sale price depends on local taxes and isn't always $1.99. I have no control over pricing, sales time etc. as this appears to be driven by my publisher.
Please note: Kiss of Steel (book one) is also at a lower price. It's showing up as $1.88 on Amazon US. Also, I chanced upon a review on Nook for KOS that cracked me up: “Also, everyone's motivations are completely believable: Blade doesn't fall mindlessly in love with Honoria's cleavage and Honoria's problems are not magically solved by his throbbing manhood.”—LaurenY
iBooks KOBO (link currently unavailable) AMAZON NOOK
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT LONDON STEAMPUNK:
I'm fielding a few questions here and there in the wake of The Mech Who Loved Me release about London Steampunk, so thought I'd put a few of the answers in a central location.
Please note: If you are not up-to-date there might be some spoilers ahead. You have been warned (:
If the loupe can be spread by sexual contact, then why isn't Ingrid concerned about passing it to Byrnes in Mission: Improper, when Will is afraid of infecting Lena in Heart of Iron?
Short answer: Lena was human, Byrnes is not. The craving is a very possessive virus. In colonizing its host, it also manages to prevent any other diseases from interfering. Byrnes CAN'T catch the loupe because he's a blue blood. This is one of the few known facts about the loupe in the British Empire at the time. Trust me, the blue bloods were very quick to work that out, considering their distaste for verwulfen around Culloden times.
Blue bloods can clearly have children (Blade and Honoria for example), but are those children going to be human or blue blood?
If the mother is human, then the child will be born human (Honoria). If the mother is a blue blood, then there is a much stronger chance the child will be infected with the craving. Both of Perry's daughters will have the craving, as twins present a more complicated birth, with potential exposure to blood—plus I'm the writer and it amuses me to think of Garrett trying to chase around little blue blood children. 90% of my plot decisions are based on the big picture/plotting/pacing/things that need to happen, and the other 10% occur purely because I think it might be funny AKA Ingrid ripping Byrnes's shirt open in my anti-bodice ripping scene (random game: see if you can find it in Mission: Improper). There's a statistical probability that a small percent of that 10% of decisions are amusing to no one else but me.
What about verwulfen?
Verwulfen women often produce verwulfen children. I'm stealing little bits and pieces of the loupe from the CMV virus and Hepatitis B/C (totally unrelated, but the way they actually work… kinda, but also putting my own spin on things). So if the verwulfen parent is the father, and if he DOESN'T infect the woman during sex, then there's a far lower risk of the child being born infected. But if the woman is verwulfen and infected with the loupe, then the risk of a verwulfen baby is quite high and pregnancy more complicated. If the child is infected via the placenta, then miscarriage rates and tubal pregnancies can affect survival rates, but of the pregnancies that survive, around 80% of children born will have the loupe. These children don't have to go through the verwulfen transformation process, which is quite dangerous, so babies born are usually fine. If they're human babies who are infected during the actual birth, then it's a little more complicated. Rest assured, I write romance and Will and Lena have been through enough, so I guarantee happy, healthy verwulfen babies for them. You might see more about this in Dukes Are Forever, which will be Malloryn's book, as Lena is friends with Adele.
Are the loupe and the craving similar?
No. Both are viruses. The craving is spread by blood contact and comes from Tibet. It is thought that being a blue blood makes you immune to practically any poison, but in The Mech Who Loved Me, we found out otherwise. There's a lot more mythology behind the craving virus, but I think dribbles of that might come out during To Catch A Rogue (Charlie), so I'm not spreading it here.
The loupe can be spread by blood AND sexual fluids. The loupe's origin comes from the north of Scandinavia and might have been transmitted long ago from animals to humans by means of a certain predator…. No prizes for guessing which animal (: However, not a great deal is known about the loupe in the British Empire. You would have to go talk to some of the Scandinavian verwulfen clans to discover more.
Speaking of verwulfen clans… What about Eric? And Astrid? Are we going to see more about them in future?
Yes. I'm not promising any dates or specifics yet, but the Verwulfen Chronicles are on my list—my never-ending list…. Who needs sleep? I need certain things to happen in the Blue Blood Conspiracy first. It will most likely be a duo, however, there's a certain side character speaking to me too so the possibility of a trilogy exists. I'm not going to stretch it for the fun of it though, it will depend on how meaty the overall story arc is.
What is the mystery about Lark? Where does she come from? Who is she?
Coincidentally, Lark and Gemma have a past association, though neither of them is aware of the other in the present. But apart from that, my lips are sealed. There might be some more hints in You Only Love Twice, which is Gemma's book, however, it depends on the plot and the way the story unfolds. For example, a lot of the history, research, and background often gets cut from each book to make the pacing of the story tighter.
What's next?
You Only Love Twice will be out sometime around next winter (Australian winter, guys), followed by To Catch A Rogue (Charlie, yay!), and then the Blue Blood Conspiracy Series will wrap up in Dukes Are Forever (which features Malloryn and a certain reluctant bride). I am *hoping* to get To Catch A Rogue out during 2018 as well, but no promises. I really want to write this book as much as you guys want it (Charlie's been on the backburner for over five years now as I wait for him to grow up a little!), but having autoimmune diseases sometimes makes it hard to keep promises. So I'm not promising anything until I can guarantee it.
I'm sure there were more questions floating around, but if you have something you desperately want to see answered, feel free to add it in the comments! I can't guarantee you'll get the answer *grins* but if it's not going to ruin the story, I might add it to the FAQ above.
