Corrina Lawson: Writer, Mom, Geek & Superhero

Official release day celebration!

A man too dangerous to live. A woman whose survival depends on forgiving him.

The Phoenix Institute, Book 2

Philip Drake is immortal by virtue of a psychic power that heals all but the worst injuries. He’s needed every bit of it as a black ops agent, a life so violent that the line between pain and pleasure is tangled up in his head.

When he walks away from the CIA, the last thing he expects is to discover someone stole his DNA to create a race of super-healers. And that the expectant mother is a woman from his past who’d consider it her pleasure to spit on his grave.

One moment, Delilah Sefton is listening to a seriously hot, seriously deranged man giving her some half-baked explanation as to why she’s pregnant with no memory of how she got that way. The next, armed men swarm into her bar, and she and Mr. Sexy-Crazy are on the run.

Safety at the Phoenix Institute is only temporary, but it’s long enough to put the pieces together. A madman plans to steal her son in a plot to take over the world. And to stop him, she must learn to trust the baby’s father—a man she blames for her greatest loss.

Warning: This novel contains fast cars (that are driven), numerous guns (that are shot), a hero who prefers pain over love, and a heroine determined to fight for those she loves.

And excerpt for you! I like this one because it shows the contrast between Philip Drake and Alec, the hero of Phoenix Rising:

As he dressed, he strapped on his ankle holster and slipped a knife into his jacket to go along with the Sig Sauer nestling in his waist holster. The lightweight jacket would conceal that well enough. He gathered up a small pocketful of tech toys, including several micro-bugs. Alec was right to want the place bugged.

He took a look at where he’d jammed the shard into his palm. The shower had washed off the blood, and the wound had fully healed already.

Pain and the rush of healing after it were all that had made him feel alive in the last few months. He’d always had a high tolerance for pain and had known that tolerance sometimes slid into pleasure. But now it was as if he needed that rush. Even his careless one-night stands had been unsatisfying unless the sex had been rough. Beth would have much to say about that, if she knew. He had no plans to tell her.

Philip drove the Charger with Alec providing directions, but he didn’t need them. He knew that area. The lab was located next to a rundown area in Passaic, just over the town line in an industrial zone of warehouses, offices and laboratories. It was accessible via the highway but Philip planned a less obvious route. Just in case, again. He didn’t know who could be watching, but that was the point. One never knew.

When he explained this to Alec, the boy shook his head. “Appreciate the security lesson, Drake, but that seems extreme.”

“You need lessons in extreme.” The firestarter was powerful, smart and he wanted to do the right thing. He’d changed the name of the Resource—which he’d inherited from his adoptive father Richard Lansing—to the Phoenix Institute to signal a new start for the place that had effectively held him captive all his life.Alec intended to find and help children like him use their power responsibly. It was an excellent, noble goal. But Alec had been raised in a vacuum, essentially isolated from the rest of the world. It made him more than naive on a few subjects.

“Someone is using your DNA to create a race of superbabies, and you think taking an undocumented driving route is extreme? Not to mention the CIA might be monitoring me or you. Whoever kept this genetics lab running after Lansing’s death could be doing the same. And there’s still the matter of those watchers out there from an unknown source that you sensed on the container ship job. Aside from the one mention in Lansing’s notes, there’s no other information. Which tells me Lansing knew something but thought it was too volatile to write down. That’s never good.”

He paused to let the words sink in. Alec shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable.

“If you want to survive to do all this good you talk about, then you have to assume enemies are watching. All the time.”

Alec stared at the car’s dashboard for a while instead of replying. Perhaps the young man was considering what he’d just been told. Or, given his sheltered upbringing, he was checking out the car. Alec loved cars.“I hate having to think that way.”

“If you want to live long enough to accomplish your aims, you’re going to have to learn.” And you damn well better learn enough to keep my daughter safe.

Alec nodded. “What if my kid is out there, Drake? Not a situation I’ve been trained to handle.”

Philip realized that the boy was truly looking for advice this time. Like it or not, Alec was a permanent part of Beth’s life. Which meant the question should be answered rather than ignored. No one had told him giving advice to a man sleeping with his daughter was part of fatherhood when he’d volunteered.

But here he was.

Onto the contest! We’ll try something different this time and instead of asking about books or characters, I wanted to talk about cars, in honor of Philip’s 1967 Dodge Charger. (My brother once owned one just like it so hopefully I have all the dashboard controls right or he’ll kill me….)

To enter, let me know your favorite classic car in the comments below.

CONTEST CLOSES AT MIDNIGHT, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18TH. YOU MUST MAKE SURE TO LEAVE AN EMAIL SO I CAN REACH YOU.

Coming Tuesday!

Phoenix Legacy, the third story in the Phoenix Institute series and the direct sequel to Phoenix Rising, releases Tuesday, November 13. So, with PR, Luminous, and Legacy, I guess I’m officially a series writer.

You can see the official blurb in an earlier post but I thought a short except might showcase the book somewhat better. This is because I’m the type of reader who ignores those blurbs when in the bookstore and flips right to the book to check it out.

Philip Drake pulled into the entrance of the bland suburban New Jersey condominium development just as many of his neighbors were leaving on their morning commute.

Feeling perverse, he gunned the ’67 Charger, making more noise than necessary. He might live here but he’d never be one of them.He smiled as the Charger took the corner on a dime. Old, but not feeble. Like him.

Though the car looked its age, standing out, not in style anymore. Unlike him.

He had wanted to experiment with the limits of his newfound conscious healing ability. Instead, he’d de-aged his body to at least a decade younger. Days of trying to reverse the process had convinced him he was cursed to look like this for a long time. Maybe until he died, whenever that was.

He was too damn old and cynical to look under thirty.He’d never get his gray hair back. He would never grow old, either, at least not naturally. Still, given what he was, it was always possible someone might kill him in the meantime. That was a comforting thought.

The book will be available at my publisher, Samhain. Just follow the links on the title or the cover. It’s also available at Amazon for Kindle and B&N for the Nook too. I’ll be posting a few more excepts over the next few days leading up to Tuesday!

A man too dangerous to live. A woman whose survival depends on forgiving him.

The Phoenix Institute, Book 2

Philip Drake is immortal by virtue of a psychic power that heals all but the worst injuries. He’s needed every bit of it as a black ops agent, a life so violent that the line between pain and pleasure is tangled up in his head.

When he walks away from the CIA, the last thing he expects is to discover someone stole his DNA to create a race of super-healers. And that the expectant mother is a woman from his past who’d consider it her pleasure to spit on his grave.

One moment, Delilah Sefton is listening to a seriously hot, seriously deranged man giving her some half-baked explanation as to why she’s pregnant with no memory of how she got that way. The next, armed men swarm into her bar, and she and Mr. Sexy-Crazy are on the run.

Safety at the Phoenix Institute is only temporary, but it’s long enough to put the pieces together. A madman plans to steal her son in a plot to take over the world. And to stop him, she must learn to trust the baby’s father—a man she blames for her greatest loss.

Warning: This novel contains fast cars (that are driven), numerous guns (that are shot), a hero who prefers pain over love, and a heroine determined to fight for those she loves.

I got the first review in yesterday for Luminous. It’s a coup to get reviewed by The Library Journal at all, nevermind receive a positive one, so I’m very pleased.

Quoting my favorite part:

“Verdict Quick reading with a superhero vibe, Luminous is a good start on the beachy book season.”

Link to the full review. The Library Journal. You have to scroll down a bit, since they are capsule reviews.

And with the release of the novella, Luminous, I’m now officially a superhero series writer.

So far, that makes three books in the Seneca series and two in the Phoenix Institute series. Phoenix is catching up, as I have a third book coming in November.

But today is all about Luminous.

Self-promotion instincts force me to point out that the novella is only $2.49 at Samhain Publishing and $3.01 on Amazon for the Kindle. Go, look, buy.

Okay, BSP over.

The creation of this story is unique because it was basically the result of a thread on Gail Simone’s forums at the Jinxworld website. I started, “Want to Write a Superhero Story?”, to encourage all the talented people on the forum to put their creative energy to work with the goal in mind to submit a story to Samhain Publishing’s call-out for superhero romance novellas.

I admit, when it came time to submit, I cheated.

I found a way to tie it into the Phoenix series and so I sent it to my regular Samhain editor instead of to the superhero romance anthology. Thankfully, Jennifer Miller liked it enough to buy it and, with the help of her editing, the story turned out great.

Yet the help of those on Gail’s forum was invaluable and I wanted to recognize them. So here’s the dedication:

Dedication

To the posters of the Want to Write a Superhero Story? thread on the Gail Simone forums at Jinxworld. Thanks for your support and help and for keeping me going. You were an inspiration.

What’s the story about?

Well, there’s an official blurb and excerpt on my books page here (along with links to buy) and more at Samhain but I can tell you the desire to write this mainly came from my desire  to write a Batman-type story. I’m pretty sure DC Comics is about to hand me a chance to do that.(If you’re read my criticism of how DC has handle outreach to the female audience, you probably know why.  And there’s the fact I still have a lot to learn about comic scripting.

But I can write.

And just as it felt great to start my steampunk story and do a riff on Sherlock Holmes, it felt awesome to be creating my own urban landscape peopled with my own heroes. Noir seemed a perfect name for my heroine, a mysterious figure who is literally invisible and so decided to make dramatic use of black in her wardrobe. I picture her very much in the mold of the Shadow.

Lieutenant Aloysius James was inspired, naturally, by Gotham’s truest cop, Jim Gordon.

You wouldn't want to mess with this guy, would you? Art from http://doubleleaf.deviantart.com/gallery/

Al isn’t the same guy, however, though they both share a need to do the right thing, no matter what. For one, Al’s a lot less eloquent and more alone in the world.

Until Noir shows up and he’s not sure whether she needs to be arrested, helped or protected. He also finds the way she fills out the black leather more than a bit distracting.

Luckily, Al isn’t easily phased by Noir’s invisibility because he’s generally unflappable. It makes their eventual lovemaking a bit challenging but as Al says “who says all men need a visual?”

So I hope you’ll give Luminous a try. I’m very tempted, when I finish the full-length novels in the Phoenix Institute series, to return to their home in Charlton City and set the pair after corrupt cops, mutant bad guys and the occasional ordinary villains who can make life so difficult.

I’m not sure what to call that series yet. Noir doesn’t seem quite right. Crime and Shadows, perhaps.

Note: for those looking for the cast of Phoenix Rising, they’re mentioned at the end of Luminous. And they’ll return in full force in Phoenix Legacy in November.

Hi!

Been crazy lately.

In the last month:

1. The GeekMom Book was submitted to our editor, hitting the February 1st deadline. Hopefully, publication this winter.

2. I sold Phoenix Legacy, the direct sequel to Phoenix Rising, to Samhain. That will be out in November.  It’s stars Philip, from PR as the hero who’s having a little trouble coping with immortality and a little more trouble coping with the people trying to kill him and someone from his mysterious past.

3. I got the finished pages of my first comic book script. More to come on that in another post but for those who read PR, it’s a four-page story of how Philip rescued Beth from the bad guys when she was a little girl. It has AWESOME art. I will post a page soon.  :)

4. I finished the final edits on Luminous (see above) an urban crimefighter superhero novella that will be out in May. It’s set tangentially in the Phoenix Institute universe but has all-original characters, including a hero inspired  by the Batman: Year One version of Jim Gordon, my favorite cop.

5. Got the final edits for the *print* version of Phoenix Rising, coming out in October.

That’s just my book publishing life.

And now that I’m back from dropping the minion off at school, here’s the first page to a four-page comic story called “Promise.” It will be in released in May as part of an all-women issue of The Gathering from Greyhaven Comics. The art is by Cassandra James of Australia, who is absolutely awesome.

Updated because the good reviews keep rolling in for Phoenix Rising!

1. The Library Journal!!!

“A touch of the X-Men with a smattering of coming-of-age legend, Phoenix Rising certainly keeps the reader’s attention. Lawson effortlessly switches points-of-view, from Alec to Beth and back again…..”The edge-of-your-seat plot keeps the story rolling along

2. A Top Pick! at Night Owl Reviews.

“Put Phoenix Rising on your keeper shelf, it’s an amazing read. I absolutely loved it, especially the characters.”

3. A nice review over at Whipped Cream Reviews too, though not quite as glowing.

I’m so thrilled the book is being read and enjoyed.

The publicity handbook says I should be doing all this *before* the book goes on sale but the weather and the power company that kept me in the dark for ten days had apparently never read the handbook.

So I thought I’d run a snippet for a few days this week, culminating in a contest/giveaway on Monday.

First up…Alec and Beth and their first kiss:

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

“I’m trying to get you to reconsider what you’ve been forced into doing for your entire life. There’s a whole world out there you haven’t seen.”

She walked over to the coffee table, reached down and brushed her fingertips over the gun. Her hand trembled. The gun lookedlike the same kind that her kidnappers had used, years ago. If he stayed with the Resource, Alec might become like those men, using any ends to justify the means.

“Hey! What’s with the nerves? Where’s my competent, no-nonsense counselor?”

The gun rose from the coffee table, floating in air. She turned and followed its flight. He snatched the gun out of midair with a smile and holstered it.

“See?” he said. “I control the guns, not the other way around.”

“And who controls you?”

His chest, Kevlar vest and all, rose and fell in a deep sigh. “I know someone in this room who’s trying to control me. What’s wrong, Beth?” He walked to her and lifted her chin with two fingers, his dark eyes crinkling around the edges.

“This is not a life you chose, this is a life that’s been imposed on you, from birth.”

“And?” His fingertips moved along her jaw, in a soft caress. I should move away. It feels too good. But he’ s listening.

“I’m scared. About this mission, about you being locked up inside the Resource forever.” Deathly afraid, so afraid her stomach felt like a heavy lump of coal. “There’s so much you don’t know about the Resource and about Lansing, so much you don’t understand. And you need to know it before it kills you.”

“Hey, I know Lansing can be a bastard. And that he’s overprotective and controlling. I’m working on it. But it doesn’t change the fact that this is my job.” Alec leaned closer to her face. “We can talk about that another time.”

“Do you really think there’s going to be another time?” Her voice rose, almost panicked now. She wasn’t getting through. “What if you get hurt tonight?”

“Look, this cell might have a dirty bomb. They need to be stopped, and I’m the one who can do it. I have to do this, right now.”

“Just that simple?”

“Yep. I walk away, people get hurt. I do my job, people are saved. That’s the deal, that’s my life. You analyze things too much.” He cupped her face in his hand. “But if it took this mission to find out you care, then good.”

She shuddered. Wrong, wrong, she shouldn’t let him touch her like this. Yet it felt like he touched her somewhere far deeper than her skin. A shiver, like the one from their first meeting, traveled from her neck to her toes, setting her nerves jangling. “This is wrong.”

“The mission isn’t wrong,” he said, misunderstanding her. “Relax.” His face was less than an inch from her lips and his breath fell on her cheek. Her skin felt inflamed, sensitive to the slightest movement of his hands.He kissed her.

His lips were softer than she had expected, tender, not at all like his casual, even macho, confidence. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling those strong muscles and pulling him against her, intensifying their contact, even as her mind screamed in protest. This is not what I came for!

Her body became enveloped in that strange energy, alive as never before. It was like the kiss had a second level, one which she responded to instinctively, creating a living connection between them. He drew her lips apart with his tongue, still tender, still allowing her the chance to back away. But she opened her mouth to him instead, her whole self consumed with wanting to touch him, her face flushed with desire. She grabbed the buckles of his body armor for balance, her equilibrium lost along with her reason.He crushed her against him, no longer tender, a bruising kiss demanding conquest. She allowed him full control, despite the buckles digging into her shoulder. He lifted her completely off her feet and brought her up to his eye level.

“Beth,” he breathed, brushing his lips against her neck before moving back to her mouth.

Her mind whirled, too lost to remember that she should stop him. She wanted him too much. The air heated up, warming them.

The papers on the coffee table began to smoke.

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

Phoenix Rising at Samhain.
Phoenix Rising at the Kindle Store.

I’m pleased and psyched to announce the sales of my novella, Luminous, to Samhain Publishing!

I wrote this novella originally intending to submit it to the Samhain superhero romance anthology. The call for submissions gave me permission to play with any type of superhero story, so I went the urban crimefighter route.

I figured, it’s not like DC was going to give me Batman to write soon, so I might as well try my own version of Gotham City.

The hero is a police lieutenant, Aloysius James, who (I admit) was inspired by James Gordon of Batman: Year One. 

The heroine is Noir, a woman who was turned completely invisible by a mad scientist trying to develop a cure for her monstrous brother. She’s dressed all in black. For comic fans, think of a female version of Cloak from Cloak and Dagger or DC’s The Shade.

Noir turns to Al for help in finding the scientist and the monster.  Al agrees because he needs to rescue a young man taken from a brutal crime scene by the monster. Then they run around the city having adventures, being shot at, and bonding.

I’ll tell you, writing a sex scene where one character is invisible was a challenge but also a lot of fun.

The reason I didn’t submit this to the superhero anthology is that I realized at the end that I could tie it into the world of Phoenix Rising and the only Phoenix Institute books that I have planned. So I sent it instead to my editor at Samhain, the lovely and talented Jennifer Miller, and she offered a contract. It’ll be out in May of next year.

It seems I’m now officially a series writer. YAY!

In other news, I was checking on whether Phoenix Rising was up yet on the Samhain website. I thought it might be too early to be up as a “Coming Soon” because it’s not due until November 8th but there it is!  It’s also up on Amazon, under the Kindle section.

And now I really have to finish the next book in the series. It’s coming along.

I LOVE this cover. So excited for this book. And doing all the edits really helped as I work on the sequel.

What I love about it:

1. The subtle flash of power

2. That it says “urban fantasy” without screaming it.

3. That it says “The Phoenix Institute Series” just like I imagined a few years ago when I was trying to name it, not knowing if it would ever sell.