Tag Archives: Author

Release Day!

dangerouspastsHere we go again! It’s release day for book 5 of the C&M Security, Dangerous Pasts. This book features the very Special Agent Zachary Parker, FBI that was introduced in the last book. He gets to know the secretive receptionist of C&M Security, Chandra Devons. Her past has come back to haunt not only her, but potentially destroy her future with Zachary in the process.

After this book there is only one more planned at this time. It is one of my current WIP’s actually, and one that is proving to be even more challenging than book 5 was. This one explores deeper into the past, showing how C&M came to be, and who the other owner of C&M is before we ever met her in book 1 of the series. It’s one that has to be very carefully written so as to not do anything that screws up anything in the books already out. But it’s one I had always planned to write so hopefully all my notes are accurate, LOL!

Buy Links for Dangerous Pasts, C&M Security 5 – Now Available At:

Evernight Publishing – http://www.evernightpublishing.com/dangerous-pasts-by-moira-callahan/

Bookstrand – http://www.bookstrand.com/dangerous-pasts-mf

All Romance – https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-dangerouspasts-1733451-149.html

Amazon USA & Canada both appear to be delayed. As soon as I have the links I’ll put them up in a post.

More links to follow in the weeks to come from the other sites that are a little slower in getting it together. Watch the Dangerous Pasts page for those as they filter in all over the map.

Have a fantastic day ~ Moira

Here comes book five…

dangerouspastsYet another amazing cover from the talented Sour Cherry Designs. These keep getting better, and better each and every time I see one. I fear I may very well pass out on the next one if it’s any better than this newest cover. Look at that, it’s fucking HOT!

This book is going to be live on January 28th, 2015 – that’s this Wednesday. I’m pretty excited about this one, it’s a little different from the other books in how it gets started, and the trouble that is brewing up. It gave my many headaches, made me grind my teeth a lot, and the cursing likely would have had any sailor or trucker blushing brightly. These are two very strong characters, but only one of them has a secret that may very well be deadly.

Since that’s all I have to share at this moment, here is an excerpt from Chapter One for a little bit of filler. Have a great Sunday ~ Moira

CHAPTER ONE ~ Excerpt

Her wrists burned from the restraints, her face felt two times too big, and her breathing was labored. Chandra knew she’d been worked over real well. Now if only she could remember some of the details.

She remembered dinner out. There had been dancing at a club, some drinks, and then nothing. Absolutely nothing. All she had was a big ass blank spot in her memory.

No, wait. A voice asking questions over and over again. Pain, she definitely recalled some pain. Nothing like the training she’d gone through to withstand interrogations of course, but it had made it onto her radar.

With care, she worked at prying her eyelids open. When that didn’t work, she went with a little more force. Didn’t really help, but she did gain a tiny slit of a view. Not that the view was worth writing home about. Concrete walls and floor, a solid-looking door with a chair sitting next to it, and her. There appeared to be some form of light, likely a single bulb given how weak it appeared to be.

Then again, it could be her shitty eyesight, and all those little dancing spots. Trying to tip her head back for a look at what had her hands caught proved too much. She was weak and sore, her mouth was parched, and her head swam. Which meant she’d been there for a damn long time. Not good, not good at all.

The door creaked open, just like in all those good old-fashioned horror movies, giving a nice squeal at the end. Set quite the mood for whatever was going on.

“Wake her up,” a voice said. Male, eastern European accent, cultured with a smooth edge of brutality. Her host was her guess.

A wave of icy cold water hit her body causing her to jolt, and gasp. It also told her that she didn’t have a hell of a lot of clothing on, her strapless bra and panties would be her assumption. Damn. That seriously sucked, especially when she couldn’t remember anything of importance. She’d been out of the game long enough to probably be considered archaic.

Someone grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back. Oh, hey, she was dangling from some sort of hook that reminded her of those used for hanging beef. Not a great comparison, but her brain was a little sluggish. Her hands were cuffed with some sort of leather banding, that then was looped over the hook, and kept her up on her feet. Nifty little setup, really.

Having a great weekend

Have a good weekend. EPS 10 of a blurred nature background.Hope you’re having a great weekend! I definitely am so far. Just got back from having a late lunch with a bunch of friends. It was filled with laughter, lots of joking, a bunch of teasing, and a horde of innuendos being tossed around. On the up side, I think we’ve found our bi-annual meeting spot of choice. Mainly because we weren’t getting shushed by the staff every time we dared to laugh, or got a little loud. It was a blast and a half to see them all again, and play catch up as well.

In other news, first rounds of edits for my story in the Uniform Fetish Anthology have been completed, and submitted back to my publisher for the second look. They were extremely minimal, and I only had a couple of things I actually needed to fix. Beyond that it was adding in a little more detail on a key point of the story per my editors suggestion. Didn’t take all that long once I figured out where the hell to put it in. Only problem with a short story of this nature, you don’t always have a lot of room for additions. I was relatively smart and kept myself a bit of room when I submitted it originally. Now though with the addition, I’m sitting a little more snugly in the word limit so hopefully there isn’t too much more required on round two otherwise I may need to consider a bit of fat trimming.

Great news to also share is that book 5 of the C&M Security series, Dangerous Pasts, will be out this Wednesday. That’s January 28, 2015 for clarification. I’m waiting on the cover to look over, and approve anxiously, and hopefully I’ll be able to post that up soon as well. For anyone that’s interested I’m also running a contest on my Facebook Group site for 1 of 2 free copies of the book. If you’re interested you can join the group HERE or just enter on the post if you are already a part of the group – I’m only accepting entries on FB. It’s super simple, and a little bit of fun all rolled into one.

Other than that I’m planning to get some writing done this weekend. I’m hoping it will be on book 6 of the C&M series but only if the characters feel like talking. They’ve been quiet of late so I’m rather fearful they have something planned I may not like. I never know with this group what might suddenly pop out of my brain to throw a wild twist into my stories. Things I then need to figure how to get them back out of to get the HEA ending required.

I know for sure I’ll be working a bit on my paranormal story, I’ve had little twinges of ideas of where to take them next. Likely I’ll probably do a bit more on my other still unknown what the hell genre it falls into story. Seriously, I have zero clue where these characters are leading me, but it should be interesting to say the least. They seem to enjoy butting heads, and basically doing everything in their power to annoy the other. Makes it a never ending roller coaster for me as the one writing it, I never seem to know what they next plan to do to the other character.

Well, that’s all the updates I have currently. So I am off to work on whatever WIP comes to me first as needing some more written in. Have a great weekend ~ Moira

Here we go…

Well it’s been a very chilly start to 2015 so far. We had a huge blizzard blow in yesterday, dumping a lot of snow onto the city, and brought some very unnecessarily cold weather with it. I know it’s winter and all, but it really wasn’t nice of Mother Nature to do that.

SnowyDayThankfully I haven’t had any reason to go outside beyond sticking my nose out my balcony doors to see just how chilly it was. It was damn chilly I’ll tell you right now. So I pulled the blinds, turned on the TV to the Holiday Fireplace for some ambiance, grabbed more coffee, and got down to some writing. Or attempted to. Apparently all my characters went off on an unauthorized bender over the holidays, and still haven’t fully recovered.

I did manage to get in some stuff on my C&M Security book, but definitely nothing of significance. Which is okay I guess, the brain isn’t back into full gear as it is anyway so getting back at this slowly isn’t a horrific plan. Especially since I’m still figuring out my new laptop, and the fact it has a few interesting quirks I’m having to work around. Like a possessed mouse pad. Which raises another question, who was the bloody brainiac that though increasing the size of the damn mouse pad on a laptop was a good idea? Like I don’t have enough problems with the things, no-no, lets make the space even bigger and ten times more sensitive than all previous models. Great plan there.

In other news my place has never been so spotless. I’ve had more than a bit of time to clean, obviously since the characters went off on hiatus. Not even complaining a little. Before the holidays I was too busy running around like a crazed lunatic to give it more than a quick once over, so it was nice to do the down and gritty cleaning. Though my knees may hate me for a few more days from scrubbing my floor by hand lol!

EPHolidayHangoverHopAnd before I completely forget to mention this. There is still a few hours left to my publishers Holiday Hangover Blog Hop. I’m hosting on my blog, A Great New Read, and there are also many other great spots to get in on the action as well. You can start right [HERE] on my publisher’s site.

Well that’s it for this rambling blog post. Hope everyone’s having a great start to the New Year. Have a great night, a great weekend, and I’ll post again soon… ~ Moira

Ringing in 2015

It’s that time yet again, the time to say bon voyage to yet another year. While I wouldn’t say that 2014 was a completely smooth year – it had more than a few bumps along the way – it was definitely an interesting one.

It started like any other year. Too little sleep, a little too much alcohol, and a desperate need to get some form of caffeinated beverage into my body. There was a mild familial crises to deal with, some time off the day job to tend to that, and then there was some brutally cold weather.

Amid all of that I was working on my very first book. A novella I’d call it given the word count. After showing it to a long time friend, who was an author in her own right, she advised that I send it into a publisher. Then came the big choice. Who the hell to send this to? A few late night discussions, a lot of pros and cons lists later my friend helped me to make the decision. Evernight Publishing was the top of the pile. There were a couple of other really close runners on the list, but from what we’d dug up, and generally discovered I thought that EP was the best fit for who I am as a person, and who I’d like to be as an author. So off I sent that very first submission.

What my friend neglected to tell me about was the gut clenching terror that immediately takes hold the moment you hit the send button for your submission. The doubts that creep in: Did I forget one of the items on their checklist? Did I attach the right file? Did I actually read the file I sent to them at any point? And then, the worst in my opinion, did I spell my own name right? ARGH! Quickly into the “sent” folder to review exactly what was sent. While this relieves a bit of the terror, it definitely does not ease it fully. Because now I’m a part of that dreaded “waiting game” I’ve heard her talk about, and read about from other author type people I’d friended on the various social networks.

The good news was, EP accepted the story, put me and it under contract, and the terror eased. Right up until that first round of editors. Again from various author folk I “know” you never knew what type of editor you may end up with. I was truly blessed with an amazing woman, Laurie Temple, who instantly relaxed me with her very first comment bubble on page one. She gave me a little information about herself, her general rules of thumb when she’s editing, and then gave me her impressions on the story itself. She was helpful, polite, and at times even threw in a wickedly amusing comment that made me actually LOL in my living room. I don’t know if I’ll forever be blessed with her awesome self, but I can definitely dream. I truly don’t know what I’d have done without her gentle, but firm, handling during that first book.

All through the C&M Security series I was again blessed to have Laurie as my editor. She became as invested in the characters as I was. And it quickly became apparent she was keeping track of what I was, and wasn’t sharing with readers in books. She started looking for things in the next ones, and keeping me honest along the way. The woman is a rock star in my books, and deserves a huge bonus. Ahem! Hear that Evernight admin people – give that woman a raise! LOL!

Thankfully my personal life was relatively calm, mundane even for the balance of 2014. It allowed me to have time to focus on my writing, finding my groove with my series, and left me time to actually interact with my readers. I have readers, fans even. Freaky right? But apparently this happens, or so the great mystics proclaimed. I’ve even had more than one reader adopt a character from my books. Now if I could only get him back from her 😉

Now, here I am, heading into a whole new year – 2015. Fresh, unknown, open to all sorts of possibilities. While there will always be challenges, personal and professional, I can only continue forward one day at a time. I’m not one to make resolutions since I know myself too well. All I can say is that I will be writing every day, I will be who I am and let no one change me, and I will come through it all the better for hopefully having learned something new and amazing along the way.

champagne glass - 2015 - bokeh background - shot 1

So to all my website readers, my book readers and fans, and everyone out there on the web. Happy New Year, may it be bright, wonderful, and may you too learn something new and amazing this year. Until next year ~ Moira

Holiday chaos

christmas treeEvery damn year I swear I’ll do all my shopping early. Every damn year I’m down to the line to get it done in time. This year is absolutely no different sadly. Maybe next year I’ll actually start early. HA! Yeah, I don’t believe it either. But it’s a truly nice thought.

I went out on the hunt for a few items today, and must brave the masses again tomorrow for even more things. It wasn’t too bad today, did what I needed to do, and even found a few extra bits to add to the gift bags for the family. Tomorrow will be a slightly grander experiment in patience. I hate crowds. I despise people who can’t seem to walk a straight line from point A to point B. And I truly hate the fact that when someone stops to talk to another person they must stand out in the flow of bodies so that everyone needs to squish around them. Really? How is that necessary?

But I know exactly what I’m going for. I will get there at an appropriately early hour so I can complete my shopping prior to the mad crush of people who leave their brains at home, yet bring the attitude. Yes, it should be a rip roaring fun day in the mall. Ugh!

In much happier news I have the edits for book 5 of the C&M Security series. Took a quick look through some of it, and there’s definitely more than a few things I need to tend to. Some are very quick fixes, others are much more complicated but I should be able to get through them before I depart for the familial gathering. At least that’s my hope. Given when it was sent to me I’ll be out of town when it needs to be sent back – not exactly the best of timing I fear on my publisher’s part, but these things happen so I will roll with it, and figure it out.

Book 6 of the series is progressing, though the characters appear to have run off for a time. My trip to the shops may have had something to do with that. Christmas madness isn’t conducive to a creative mind. A homicidal one perhaps, but definitely not anything of a creative nature LOL! I haven’t had any new inspiration on my paranormal story, or the other one that’s in bits and pieces in a Word doc. I’m hopeful that once the crazy time has passed my characters will come out of hiding again and I can get back to writing.

Well, that’s all I have to say today. So I hope you enjoy your evening, and the balance of your weekend. ~ Moira

Release Day!

It’s that time again, yay! Release day for book 4 in the C&M Security series – Dangerous Circumstances. I’m excited about this one as it will let the readers meet the doctor, Mackenzie Vaughn, who patched Rhonda up in the last book. Readers also get to know more about the lovely Denise Franklyn, the C&M computer guru. I also introduce a new character that is integral to the book that follows this one.

Since I’m not sure what else to say, here’s a little snippet to enjoy…

*****

She looked like a slightly mussed angel in her sleep. Mack smiled a little as he watched Denise. Her lips were parted ever so slightly, her hair a bit tousled around her head and her breaths nice and slow. She had one arm tucked under her pillow and head. The other was stretched toward him, her fingers lightly brushing his arm.

Easing slowly onto his side, he moved her hand so he didn’t crush it. He didn’t let it go either, holding it loosely as he pressed her palm to his chest. For a moment, Mack closed his eyes. Not too long though. He wanted to watch her sleep. She was so relaxed, so calm, so at peace when she slept. It was very different from her normal wide-awake mode.

After adjusting his pillow, Mack wiggled in closer to her. Slowly, carefully, so he didn’t wake her. He didn’t want her to wake up yet. While he could easily function on two, three, or even four hours of sleep after years of training during medical school and his residency, Denise definitely needed more.

A quick peek over his shoulder at the clock showed it had been around six hours since they’d hit the sheets. More than enough for him. Highly doubtful it would be enough for her. Really he should just leave her be and let her sleep. He was tempted to get up, but he didn’t actually want to.

Once more he settled his gaze on her face and smiled when her lips moved in a manner that suggested she was talking in her sleep. Maybe she was having a dream. It would be too much to hope it was about him. It might be though, given the small frown on her face. He tended to push her through all the range of emotions, usually once every hour when they were in the same space.

*****

And here are the links that I have as of this moment:

Evernight Publishing – http://www.evernightpublishing.com/dangerous-circumstances-by-moira-callahan/

Amazon (US) – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R42TIOQ/

Amazon (CDN) – http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00R42TIOQ/

Bookstrand – http://www.bookstrand.com/dangerous-circumstances-mf

All Romance – https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-dangerouscircumstances-1704508-149.html

That’s all I have folks. Gotta go and get to work on book 6 of the series while I await edits on book 5 (due out January 2015). Have a fantastic day! ~ Moira

Taking a short break

antike SchreibutensilienI’ve been busily working on the next book in the C&M Security series. Book six is the prequel book for the series, the one that shows how the entire thing got started. It also is the story of Robyn Matthews, the “M” of C&M Security. It’s a little about her, and Shawn’s pasts as well as how she meets her fiancé Grant. My other goal to the book, beyond a bit of history of the two biggest characters of the series -Shawn and Robyn- is to also reveal why Robyn, and Grant are still engaged many years after the fact.

The biggest challenge is ensuring I don’t muck up anything so the other books still work in the series. So far so good since it’s all “history” at the moment. The plus of doing the prequel after the fact is knowing what’s to come since it’s already all laid out.

The biggest problem is working on it, it’s all at my characters whim what I manage to get down at any given time. That and my muse who seems to have a bit of a problem these days. She’s got me working not only on C&M, but also a new paranormal. On top of all that she’s kicking around another idea. Nothing solid on the third one as of yet, but who knows what it may end up being. Guess I’ll have to wait and see what all she gives me in regards to that.

Now, on that note I need to get a few things from the store so I’m heading offline for a time. Hopefully when I get back my muse’ll have some more for me to write. Hope everyone is having a great weekend, talk soon ~ Moira

Here comes book four…

dangerous-circumstancesI have an awesome cover (thank you Sour Cherry Designs!), I have a date, and my publisher has the finished, smoothed out version of the book. Life is awesome! Don’t really have a lot to say except that Dangerous Circumstances, C&M Security 4 will be available December 17, 2014 for purchase at a bunch of places. And then a few more about a week later when they finally catch up with the cool kids.

So, please enjoy the fan-freaking-tastic cover, I know I am, and here’s a little something to whet the appetite…

***************     ***************     ***************

It wasn’t so much a sound that woke him. There was a sound, but it was so soft he really shouldn’t have noticed. It wasn’t like he was a light sleeper or anything, but he also knew when he wasn’t in his own bed.

Cracking open an eye, Mack peered around.

He recognized the furniture around him. He was on Denise’s sofa. What caught his eye was Denise. She was in the kitchen of her condo, puttering around while the heady scent of coffee teased his senses.

With a groan, he pushed up to a sitting position and rubbed his face. When he dropped his hands, a coffee mug was in front of his face. Taking it automatically, he looked up to see Denise’s worried face staring down at him. Yeah, she likely had a reason to be worried given how and when he’d shown up at her door.

“Thanks,” he croaked out.

She just nodded and went back to the kitchen. “Breakfast will be ready in ten.”

“What time is it?” Taking a sip of the strong brew Mack let out a sigh. Another sip helped push the caffeine into his system.

“Uh, it’s almost noon. So technically it’s lunchtime, but whatever. We’re having breakfast,” she told him.

Shit, noon? Fucking hell. He hadn’t expected to sleep so late, normally wouldn’t have if he hadn’t wandered around San Francisco in the wee hours of the morning. Pushing up from the sofa, he stretched and winced at the aching muscles.

“Let me hit the bathroom and I’ll be right out,” he said. Another gulp of coffee, and he set the mug aside as she flicked a hand in acknowledgement. Not sure what else to say, he went to the bathroom.

When he came back out she had the food on the table, mugs refilled, and was wiping down the stove. Unsure what to do, not for the first time around Denise, he waited on her.

“Sit down, Mack,” she said. Tossing the sponge she’d been using into the sink, she came around the island to the table and sat.

Well, all right. Frowning, he went to one of the chairs with a plate set before it, and sat down. Pancakes, eggs and bacon. Not exactly the healthiest of meals but it was great comfort food, and just what he needed.

***************     ***************     ***************     ***************

Have a wonderful night! ~ Moira

A slightly chaotic rant

da020a81-a502-45bf-8f26-3422ecfc225eFiguring I should do up another post on my website I sit here staring at my screen. I have no clue what this post will be about given the number of things tumbling around in my head currently. So I think I’ll let it just ramble out at it’s own pace and see where it might lead. Be warned, this may be long, with some point to point insanity tossed in, and may actually get down, dirty, and plain old nasty. Here we go…

First thing that comes to mind is an issue of piracy. An author friend of mine recently had a release, and as part of the lead up to it had an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) give away. Being the smart cookie that she is, my friend found a way to embed coding into each copy to make them individually unique so when she gave them to the readers who won a copy, she’d know if any of them decided to be a douche. One such person proved themselves to be just that, a douche. This person took the gift from my author friend, and promptly uploaded it to a known piracy site. Because of the encoded meta data my friend put in it was easily traceable.

It’s people like this that make us authors so wary to gift our books. Personally I always do it via a site that has the DRM in place. Not saying this is the be all, end all to stop these folks. But it’s definitely a step in the right direction. The personalized meta data encoding is another. Making each book unique, easily traceable, and so you know exactly who the perpetrator is. Sadly I’m not sure what else you can do. While the FBI has a division set for cyber crime, including intellectual property theft on the Net, what all can truly be done to stop these jerks? You shut down one site, and another pops up. You find new ways to secure books to prevent this from happening, and some jackass finds three ways around it. It really makes me, as an author, wonder why I bother to do prize giveaways. Or at least ones involving my books. It also makes me fucking mad that these people continuously get away with stealing. And that others seem to think it’s perfectly fine.

Yes books cost money, so does gas, so do things like clothing, shoes, food. But not a one of these pirates goes out to steal a cup of coffee, or a loaf of bread because that would be “wrong”. So where the fuck do they get off thinking it’s perfectly okay to steal an author’s work? We spend hours, days, months getting a book just right before we send it into our publishers. Then there is more time in refining it, getting it perfect for sale, and then the hours of pimping the books to garner those sales. This is all time that we, at least initially, are giving away free. Because it takes a damn long time to actually make any money off your books.

Prime example. My first quarter as an author I earned enough to buy exactly 8 XL cups of Tim Horton’s coffee with a few pennies left over. Yes, I am a Timmy’s addict, and damn proud of it – so shush. My second quarter I earned enough to get exactly 16 XL cups of Tim Horton’s coffee (should mention this is prior to the just recent price hike of said XL coffee cup) with a few pennies left over. Yes that was twice as much as the first quarter, but it’s still not enough to live off of. No where NEAR enough. Yet I hear all too often, and this is a paraphrase of several different people, “authors make so much money why are they bitching about one/two/three (whatever number) of their books being pirated – it’s free advertising basically”. Bull-fucking-shit. It is THEFT. Unfortunately there’s no way YET to nail these assholes to the proverbial wall. Yet.

Okay, enough on that topic. All it does is piss me the fuck off which is totally not conducive to getting my head into the proper writing space. Which I need to do soon enough. I now have three, yes THREE damn WIP’s on the burner. Don’t know where the hell they keep coming from but they do seem to pop up to drive me insane.

Second topic of irritation I want to throw out there since I’m in a venting mood – Christmas. It is not the “holiday season”, it is Christmas. In a lot of things I am PC…to a degree. But not on this. I don’t give two shits who I offend, cause it’s my fucking country, it’s Merry Christmas. Every culture has their own version, I say celebrate it accordingly and proudly. But when folks who come to our country for a better life get all pissy because our holiday offends them, too fucking bad. We were here first and it’s our holiday. You get to celebrate your holidays without all of us getting pissy at you. So, quite honestly, if you don’t like it, there’s the fucking door – don’t let it hit you in the ass on the way out.

Sadly too many things are getting all white washed out to ensure we don’t offend anyone. It’s more than beyond time to get back to the way things were. A time when kids weren’t given everything they snivelled for, but had to earn it with hard work. Or where a teacher actually had some authority over her classroom instead of getting fired for giving a student a failing grade – I had to earn my marks, why don’t the “next generation”? Come on, all this is doing is raising a bunch of people who think they don’t have to do anything to get it all. Personally I can’t wait for the reality check most of these little shits will get one day when they are all flipping burgers at McD’s or somewhere similar for barely minimum wage. How you going to afford the latest and greatest toys then?

Okay, I’d better stop before I really get myself worked into an unholy tizzy. Time to take some of my annoyance and put it into my writing. I need to get to work on those otherwise there’s not much coming out from me in the New Year. EEEK! Not good. All right. Sorry again for the rambling, spewing crap I tossed out. But I needed to get it out of my system. I hope all of you have a lovely weekend, and play safe out there in the malls, and stores. ~ Moira