The Cover Story, Nemesis

Today's guest is someone fun!! And this story, rocks!! As do CJ Redwine and Sharon Gerlach. In other words, a great story about a great story! :D Come say high!

 

Finding Nemesis

No, this isn’t the story of a lost little clownfish, though I love that movie.

A little over four years ago, I went to a photo shoot some friends of mine were doing. It was all pin-up girls and biker-gangster-ish guys—lots of tattoos—with some great shots of girls on cars and guys on or next to motorcycles, and everyone had a gun in their hands. I’d already started writing Nemesis—on November 15^th, in fact—and was just barely into the story. I remember the date because it was that same night I’d realized that NaNoWriMo had already begun and I’d wanted to participate that year, 2008, so I started a bit late. I went a little over the deadline, writing a 91,000-word book in two and a half months. That literary baby became gi-normous through several edits, and she cost me a lot in sacrifice—blood, sleep, and tears, among other things. Nemesis grew to 116,000 words, namely because CJ Redwine, in the midst of her synopsis workshop in 2010, pointed out to me that I had a HUGE plot hole in the story. I was able to shed over 10,000 words after a thorough edit via Sharon Gerlach.

I remember standing in the alley, the car parked at an angle, and my friend Aleks (aka the Dirty Russian) climbing up a ladder to take the shot of his future wife Rita lying across the top of an old car. I stood off to Aleks’ right, near the bottom of that cover photo, and remember thinking, “Oh my God, that shot is going to be spectacular.” And then I thought, “I wonder if I could use it for something,” not realizing at the time that it would end up as a book cover, and especially not realizing it would be the cover for Nemesis.

When the time came, nearly a year and a half later, to design the cover for Nemesis, I emailed Aleks with a photo that I really liked but couldn’t find the original copyright owner, and asked him if he could do something similar. We got to talking and I finally asked him what he did with the photo of Rita on the car. He replied that he hadn’t done anything with it other than a calendar and some prints, and asked if I wanted to use that. After discussing price, and having Brandon do some Photoshop work on the image, the photo was mine.

(and isn't it lovely!! ~LB)

 

What I love more than anything is that not only were these friends of mine and I attended the photo shoot, which made it so very personal already, but that Rita didn’t have any tattoos showing on her upper body at the time of the shoot, and Brandon not only added the tattoos, but the one on her arm in the image you see on the cover is the exact tattoo on her arm now.

Rita came by last week to pick up three copies of Nemesis, and it was the first time she’d seen the book cover in person. When I told her people raved about the cover, she actually got embarrassed. Shh, don’t tell anyone. It’d mess with her tough girl image. We hugged, said goodbye, and she drove off on her motorcycle with a copy for herself, her husband, and Brandon the Photoshop genius. And I went to work with a smile because, finally, they had their copies that I’d been trying to get to them forever.

 

Prince Charming was a putz.

Prince Charming number two was even worse. 

After the last prince ran off without any notice, breaking her heart and their engagement along the way, Nemesis Mussolini swore off men and passed the time kicking ass and slinging drinks, something her mafia father would never approve of. But, when her boss Clancy ups his flirtations, it's difficult to remember she's not interested, especially when he gets that delicious evil glint in his eye that has her melting. Just when Nemy starts to think all men might not be bad, she hears whispers about Clancy's less than legal past, and wants to run like hell from the idea that he could be just like her father.

Great . . . Prince Charming number three may possibly be on FBI's Most Wanted.

While Nemy and Clancy tumble down the romance road, hitting potholes every step of the way, Nemy discovers how much of her heart already belongs to Clancy, and how much of a Don's daughter she really is. But she must learn to trust again. Can Nemy surrender in time to get her happily ever after, or is she hell-bent on letting her past keep her from the one man who could be her true Prince Charming?

 

NL “Jinxie” Gervasio is a creator and destroyer of worlds. She is both editor and author, and discovered she’s quite good at the romance thing—writing it, that is—along with vampires, werewolves, zombies, angels and demons. Jinxie is the CEO and Founder of Just Ink Press, her second publishing company, and she also owns and operates Forever Nocturne e-zine, a bi-annual literary magazine. Jinxie reviews books in her spare time, of which she rarely has any.

Jinxie was born on Friday the 13th. Her dad wanted to call her Jinx. Her mom said no. It took 34 years for her to discover the nickname, and she's grown quite attached to it. She lives in Tempe, Arizona with Umi (her mother), whom she cares for. She enjoys riding her beach cruiser "The Betty" around downtown Tempe, loves a good pub crawl, and has had the pleasure and the heartache of experiencing a love far greater than she could have ever imagined.

She welcomes you to her worlds.

Jinxie is the author of the Kick-Ass Girls Club series book NEMESIS and the Prophecy series books THE DRACOVE and GODS & VAMPYRES.

Twitter │ Facebook │ Just Ink Press │ Forever Nocturne │ Zombie Survival Crew

Hi!
I know, it hasn’t been six month’s but I thought I’d post anyway I have two new releases, Serviced, and Crimson, both anthologies Serviced has something to do with military (those were the guidelines to submit) and had to be hot. Well, we deliver! Here’s a FB link for Serviced page and here's the cover:
 

Gorgeous, ain’t he? er, sorry for the bad grammar. He’s got me all tongue tied… My story, Over a Dead Body has a Navy man and an NCIS woman and boy do sparks fly.
Riker discovered a body and it’s Edie’s job to determine if he did it or not.

He looked at her, his face set hard in downward lines, his eyes ice cold as they looked at her. “Am I a suspect or a witness?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

He slammed a fist on the table. The noise echoed in the small room. “Damn it, Edie. You know I didn’t do this. Why are you baiting me?”

Other than a slight twitch of her knees, she managed to control the urge to jump back from his outburst. “I’m doing my job,” she answered coldly.

“Your job.” He sneered the words back at her.

“Yes, my job. I need to find out what happened to the MCPO and your role in it.”

“I had no role. I had a meeting and found him dead.”

“So you say,” she said, poking the tiger. She needed to be sure. She knew him well, even if it had been five years. He still hadn’t told her everything.

“Since when is my honor in doubt?” he nearly shouted.

She clenched her fists behind her back to relieve some of the emotions coursing through her. Was it honorable to leave a woman just weeks before the marriage? “We are talking about murder. Or rather you’re not talking.” Her voice rose on the end. He had a way of getting under her skin—always had. Everyone on her team thought she was cold as ice under pressure.

“I told you I found him and called you. I did not kill him,” he said. His vocal volume also rose, making her feel a bit better. She wasn’t the only one losing control.

“You’re also not telling me the whole truth. Out with it.”

Their shouting match had put them in each other’s faces. Her height so close to his that they were mouth to mouth and before she knew it, he’d grabbed her and stolen a kiss from her. Stolen a kiss, her anger, and her will to resist.

For a brief blissful moment, she forgot about the case, the five years, and the betrayal of abandonment. His lips pressed to hers, rough, demanding and oh so delectable. She gave back as good as she got, her tongue warring with his for supremacy.

Then he stepped back and she stood there dazed. They both were breathing hard and just stared. She recovered first.

“What in the hell was that?” Yes, anger, a dandy shield to hide behind. She should know; she’d perfected the technique over the last five years.

These two are a real riot together. Both strong, both loving and wait until you see what happens to them!!

For snippets from other stories in the anthology, go like and read the page. Allie A Burrow shares a few bits there!

 

OH and let's add the buy link, shall we :) It's even on sale at the pubs site! Buy buy buy ;D