Another UK event!

Oooh! Here's another UK event! Yea! And check out how cool it looks. So, the details: on Thursday, 13th August, we will be speaking and signing at Ramsgate Library, Guildford Lawn Ramsgate, CT11 9AY at 11.30am. Tickets cost £2. Please call 01843 593532 for more details.

Y'all come out and see us!

CONTEST REMINDER!

Hey guys, don't forget the tattoo contest ends Friday the 31st at midnight Central Time. So you procrastinators need to get your stuff in! I'll announce the winners before Kristin and I leave for the UK on the 2nd. Good luck!

And the UK cover, too!

Thought y'all would like to see the British/UK cover, that they also unveiled today. Which do you like better? I'm torn...

XXXOOO
PC

TEMPTED COVER!

OOOOOH! Finally! Check out TEMPTED!

And in case the link doesn't work for you in the card, here it is again http://www.houseofnightseries.com/pages/tempted.html

Oh, and FYI - the two guys represented on the cover are: 1)Stark - she's in his arms, and 2) Heath - is in shadow behind them.

I can't wait until October! Enjoy!

XXXOOO
PC

GODDESS OF CAMELOT NEWS!

Fans of my GODDESS SUMMONING SERIES for Berkley will be pleased to know that my 2010 book, GODDESS OF CAMELOT, will definitely be released (sorry, don't have the month yet). This is mostly in thanks to my friend, Jill Monroe, the genius behind the hilarious satiric Author Talk videos. Jill has agreed to coauthor GODDESS OF CAMELOT with me, as my House of Night schedule has drastically reduced the time I can allot to other writing. You can check Jill out at www.jillmonroebooks.com. I'll let you know as soon as we have a release date. Right now we're having a blast with the funny and sexy plot twists and turns we're putting lovely King Arthur and his court through...

UK Tour!

Kristin and I are coming to the UK! Yea! We're sooooo looking forward to it! Here's the preliminary schedule (said with my really bad pretend English accent):

FRIDAY, AUGUST 7TH, 6.00pm, Talk & Signing at Waterstones York
28-29 High Ousegate
York YO1 8RX

MONDAY, AUGUST 10TH, 3.00pm, Talk & Signing Waterstones Arndale
Unit MSU4 Manchester Arndale
Manchester M4 3AQ

We'll also being doing events in and around London, but we don't have exact places and dates confirmed for those yet. Keep checking back - I'll post as soon as I get updates. Oh, and NO, we aren't in charge of where we're going. Our lovely UK publisher is handling that - so we're as clueless as you guys are until we hear from them.

Cheers!
PC

Harlequin Teen Website Live!

I'm getting ready to take off for Wash, DC, and the Romance Writers of America's national convention (which I'm not "officially" attending, but I will be meeting with my editors, my agent, and a bunch of author friends - fun!). Just got the word that the Harlequin Teen site is live, so here it is: http://harlequinteen.com/teen/. And also here's a short Q&A I did for them.

Author Q&A: P. C. Cast
P.C. Cast is proud to have published in the young adult, paranormal romance and fantasy genres. She has a special spot in her heart for the fantasy series she's written for Luna and Harlequin Teen because she wishes she could live in the world of Partholon. Her first Harlequin Teen title is Elphame's Choice.

Q: On your nightstand now:

PC's Answer: Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

Q: Favorite book when you were a child:

PC's Answer: It's a three-way tie:

I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew by Dr. Seuss
The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford
The Black Stallion by Walter Farley

Q: Your top five authors:

PC's Answer: Ray Bradbury, Robin McKinley, Pat Conroy, Anne McCaffrey and Charlotte Bronte.

Q: Book you've faked reading:

PC's Answer: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. (I even faked teaching it!)

Q: Book you're an evangelist for:

PC's Answer: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Q: Book that changed your life:

PC's Answer: There are two of them:

Dragon Flight by Anne McCaffrey and Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd.

Q: Favorite line from a book:

PC's Answer: It's a little more than one line from near the end of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird:

" . . . Summer, and he watched his children's heart break. Autumn again, and Boo's children needed him. Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough . . ."

Q: Book you most want to read again for the first time:

PC's Answer: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.

Street Cats Tulsa!

To carry on with the What Should Be On My Website But Isn't While It's Under Construction theme, I wanted to blog about one of my favorite local charities, the fabulous Street Cats. Yes, they are the Street Cats mentioned many times in the HoN books. Yes, the place I describe is the real building (pictured below). Yes, the women who volunteer to run it are WONDERFUL; Kristin and I heart them. The real Nala was adopted from Street Cats. Okay, no, they aren't nuns. But still.

In case you'd like to check them out, their website is www.streetcatstulsa.org, and email contact information is cats@streetcatstulsa.org. They always appreciate donations, and there are always super cool cats waiting to be adopted. So if you're looking for a cat...

Kristin and I give a big "well done you!" to our Street Cats buddies.




p.s. Speaking of cats - thought you guys would like to see my horrid monster, Patchy Poo the Pud. He's a magnificent beast and I heart him completely!

YA Books!

I'm really excited about being included in the launch of Harlequin Teen along with Rachel Vincent (MY SOUL TO TAKE, August) and my buddy Gena Showalter (INTERTWINED, September).

ELPHAME'S CHOICE will be on sale late September, followed by BRIGHID'S QUEST in March 2010. Both are set in my fantasy world of Partholon, one hundred and twenty five years after the events of my adult trilogy: DIVINE BY MISTAKE, DIVINE BY CHOICE, DIVINE BY BLOOD. Elphame and Brighid are coming of age stories in a fantasy setting. I love these books and am so glad Harlequin is breathing new life into them. I think fans of House of Night will adore them! I can't wait to hear what you guys think!!

So here are the amazing covers:

My Favorite Books

I had a page on my website that referenced some of my favorite all time reads because I get asked so often for recommendations. So I'm going to duplicate them here, divided into YA and adult. Guys - please understand that I'm only making the two distinctions because parents can get uncomfortable with teens reading what they consider "adult" material. I think that's each family's business, and I'm just being careful not to recommend to twelve year olds something that's sooooo not appropriate.

Some of my all time favorite books are:

Young Adult:
Beauty by Robin McKinley
Dragon Flight, Dragon Quest, and The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
My Losing Season by Pat Conroy
Wicked Lovely and Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Hawksong Books by Amelia Atwater Rhodes
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Adult:
The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon
Watchers by Dean Koontz
The Odd Thomas books by Dean Koontz
I really love Wilbur Smith's African novels!
Anything at all by Pat Conroy, but I especially love Beach Music, The Prince of Tides, The Water is Wide, and The Great Santini
Anything Christopher Moore writes. My current favorites are: Fool and Lamb.
If you want hot and sexy, Gena Showalter's Lords of the Underworld series will be a perfect fit.
I also totally heart Kresley Cole's books.
And I think everyone should read: Winds of War by Hermon Wouk, Shogun by James Clavell, Night by Elie Wiesel, and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Requiem for the Devil by Jeri Smith Ready is an amazing novel

Wow! There are so many amazing books!

Happy reading,
PC

THE DIVINE TRILOGY

To continue my posts meant to avoid confusion caused by my author site, www.pccast.net, being under construction, I'm blogging about the other series I've written apart from the HOUSE OF NIGHT.

This next series is a trilogy of fantasy books published by LUNA (Harlequin's single title fantasy imprint). The books will be released exclusively for Borders starting with DIVINE BY MISTAKE in August, DIVINE BY CHOICE in September, and DIVINE BY BLOOD in October. In November all three will be available everywhere.

I love this series - it's funny and sexy and great adventure. It's also not written for a YA audience. So, again, please be aware of the adult content, which I'd rate at about R for sex and violence.

Here are the lovely covers with the blurbs. Enjoy!

GODDESS SUMMONING BOOKS

I'm having my www.pccast.net website rebuilt, so I thought it would be wise to devote a few posts to things you'd usually find on my author site to avoid "under construction" confusion.

I get lots of questions about the other books I've written besides the HOUSE OF NIGHT series. First, I do have a paranormal romance series I've written for Berkley called THE GODDESS SUMMONING BOOKS. At this time there are six of the books available. The seventh book, GODDESS OF CAMELOT, will be released in 2010 (sorry, I don't have a month yet). The GODDESS SUMMONING BOOKS do not have to be read in order, as each stand alone. Some of them do have characters that repeat in other books, but not to the point of confusion. My YA readers should know that these are not young adult books. I consider them at about an R rating for sex and violence (mostly sex).

Here's the list of each book, a little blurb about it, and the ISBN number (that makes it easy to request from any bookstore or library). I'm listing them in order of which was published first to the most recently published book. Here goes:

1. GODDESS OF THE SEA

ISBN: 978-0-425-22688-9
Home alone on the night of her twenty-fifth birthday, USAF sergeant Christine Canady yearned for something to cure her loneliness. After drinking too much champagne, she recited a divine invocation to revive her humdrum life. but how was she to know the spell would actually work?
When her plane crashes into the ocean, CC's life changes forever. She awakens, bewildered, to find herself in a legendary time and place ruled by magic - and in the body of the mythical mermaid Undine. But danger lurks in the water, ready to swallow CC whole. Taking pity on her, the goddess Gaea turns CC into a damsel so that she might seek shelter on land. When a dashing knight comes to CC's rescue, instead of falling for this dream come true, she aches for the sea and the darkly sexy merman who's stolen her heart...

2. GODDESS OF SPRING

ISBN: 978-0-425-22708+4
Lina's bakery in Tulsa is proving to be less than lucrative - and she needs a plan. When she stumbles upon an Italian goddess's cookbook, Lina can't help but think she's found her answer - even if it means summoning an ancient goddess...
Soon enough, Lina finds herself face-to-face with the goddess Demeter, who proposes that Lina change places with Persephone, the Goddess of Spring, who'll breathe new life into the bakery. In return, Lina, embodying the lovely Persephone, must bring Spring to a world of spirits. But when the handsome, brooding Hades kindles a spark in her heart, Lina wonders whether the dark Lord of the Underworld is her worst nightmare - or the man of her dreams...

3. GODDESS OF LIGHT

ISBN: 978-0-425-22709-1
Tired of dating egomaniacs, interior designer Pamela Gray has nearly given up on men. She wants to be treated like a goddess - preferably by a god. As she whispers her wish, she unwittingly invokes the goddess Artemis, who has some tricks up her celestial sleeve...
Twins Aretmis and Apollo have been sent to the Kingdom of Las Vegas to test their mettle. Their first assignments: make Pamela's wish come true. So Artemis volunteers her golden brother. After all, who better than the handsome Gode of Light to bring love to this lonely woman?
If might be a first, but here in Sin city, where life is a gamble, both god and mortal are about to bet on a high stakes game of love. Hey, you only live once. Or do you?

4. GODDESS OF THE ROSE

ISBN: 978-0-425-22710-7
It's not a green thumb that's kept the Empousai family's roses blooming for centuries - it's the drops of blood that their women secretly sacrifice for their gardens. But Mikki would rather forget this family quirk and lead a normal life. Until the day she unwittingly performs a ritual and ends up in the strangely familiar Realm of the Rose. As its goddess, Hecate, reveals to her, Mikki has the blood of a high priestess running through her veins. And the realm has been waiting for her...
It a long ago flash of temper, Hecate cursed her Guardian beast with a slumber that only her priestess can undo - and Hecate is counting on Mikki to set things right. At first the beast terrifies Mikki - but soon he intrigues her more than any man ever has. But the only way he and the realm can be saved for for Mikki to sacrifice her life-giving blood...and herself...

5. GODDESS OF LOVE

ISBN: 978-0-425-21528-9
My Goddess, does Pea Chamberlain ever need a makeover! her shoes, hair, clothes, makeup are all disasters, especially if she wants to attract uber-sexy fireman Griffin DeAngelo at the firemen's masked ball. And who better to coax Pea out of her pod than the Goddess of Love, who she invokes when she gets her hands on a book of enchantments.
Sure enough, Venus works her magic on Pea, which is what she has been doing for eons - helping others find love. But who will help the Goddess of Love when she finds herself falling for the same sexy fireman she is trying to land for Pea? Could it be that Venus needs a love makeover herself? Check out the fireworks when the Goddess of Love unexpectedly loses her heart...

6. WARRIOR RISING

ISBN: 978-0-425-22137-2
Goddesses Hera, Athena, and Venus have had it up to here with the Trojan War. So much devastation - all because of some silly male egos. The worst of the bunch is Achilles, the Greek champion whose powers have made him practically invincible. To stop him would be to end the war. But the only way to stop a man like Achilles is to distract him - with something far more pleasurable than combat...
The three goddesses seize their chance when a twenty-first-century beauty named Kat and her best friend perish in a car crash in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In no time, they shift the friends' souls into the bodies of a Trojan princess and her handmaiden, having no doubt that Kat will catch Achilles's attention. But can her independent, fiery spirit match the unquenchable fire of his epic rage? Goddess only knows...

Okey-dokey! That's a summary of the Goddess Summoning Books out as of right now. Happy reading!

PC

Oooh! A contest! Free HoN stuff! Ooooh!

In celebration of TEMTED being finished, THE FLEDGLING HANDBOOK almost being finished, my stress level going way down along with my grumpy level, I've decided to run a very cool CONTEST because I have the most awesome and creative fans EVER. And I'm going to give away stuff! Cool House of Night stuff!

So, here are the details:
1) The contest will be for who can create the coolest vampyre tattoo, photograph it, and send it to my lovely new personal assistant, Camden Clark at castseries@gmail.com.

2) You may enter as many times as you'd like, but each tattoo has to be unique.

3) No, for this contest I won't take sketches. But don't despair artists - I'll run a contest for you after this one (and don't worry - I have plenty of cool HoN stuff!).

4) The pictures must be real people and not computer generated images, but you may photoshop them. Holly's picture in the previous post, and beautiful Iona's picture in this post are good examples of what I'm looking for.

5) The contest begins immediately and will run until midnight, central time, on July 31st.

6) Camden will collect the entries and give them to me, and then I'll pick the winners. I'll probably award the first three places and perhaps an honerable mention.

7) I will judge the photos on: origionality, creativity, and general coolness.

8) PRIZES! I'll be giving away a signed set of the HoN books, tee shirts, and jewelry. FYI: The Fire Goddess, my wonderful jeweler who does exclusive work for the HoN, has created a NEW PIECE OF JEWELRY for the October release of TEMPTED. It's a pendant of Nyx, and it is amazing! The pendant won't be available for purchase until October, but the lucky winner of this contest will receive the piece early! Yea!

9) YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE IN THE US TO ENTER. The HoN is currently published in 22 countries around the world. You may enter from anywhere!

Good luck! I can't wait to see what you come up with!

XXXOOO
PC

Check out Holly's Fun With Photoshop!

Holly Rodgers sent me this lovely photo. I think she makes an excellent vampyre! Holly: well done you!

XXXOOO
PC

A cover I CAN show you!

I know you guys are anxiously awaiting the unveiling of the cover of TEMPTED, which my wonderful publisher is keeping Top Secret until later this summer. So when my editor at Harlequin sent me the final cover for my early October Nocturne release, THE AVENGER, I thought I'd post it right away!

It's a cool time travel story with most of the action set in Briton in 60 AD, and Boudica is an important secondary character. Interestingly enough, in the House of Night world's history I have Boudica's two teenage daughters being Marked and going through the Change - and during that time they found the Dark Daughters.

Oh, a ratings warning: THE AVENGER is not young adult. I'd give it an R rating for violence and sex. So if your parents won't let you see R rated movies this book isn't for you.

XXXOOO
PC

Back from NYC...

Well, we're back from GMA and a fun Borders interview at BEA in NYC. The picture is from our last day in the city, after our Borders interview. We got to take off and SHOP! It was a gorgeous day - perfect weather. We had a bike guy take us back to our hotel, and when he dropped us off he told us his bike was brand new! We were his very first customers, so we had him take a picture to commemorate the event. The bike guys are so much more fun than cabs!

The rewrite of TEMPTED is almost finished, and then I'll be working on the text part of the illustrated FLEDGLING HANDBOOK. More on that later...

Those of you in the Oklahoma City area check out ABC on June 29th. I'm not sure what time, but the program is called "Believe in Oklahoma." They were just here interviewing us - such a nice group. I'll try to post a link after it airs.

Wishing y'all happy reading and lovely summer weather,
PC

HUNTED in Iraq with our guys!

Gary Schubert, my friend over in Iraq, sent this great picture of himself with HUNTED. Soooo cool, Gary! Thanks! Gary is a short-timer, and in just a little over 50 days he's returning to his wife and family stateside.

Let's all wish Gary a fast, safe 50 days!

XXXOOO
PC

GMA & Nightline!

Hi Guys!
Kristin and I are off to New York City to appear on Good Morning America Thursday morning, May 28th. We hear we should be live between 8:30 and 9:00 ET. Then we'll be on Nightline Thursday night. It's PC & Kristin day on ABC!

Fingers crossed we don't mess up...

XXXOOO
PC

A new series!

Hi guys! Happy Memorial Day weekend! I know a bunch of you have finally been released from school - so yea to you AND your amazing teachers.

I thought I'd give you a heads up about a new series I've been involved in. It's for Harlequin's Nocturne imprint, which means it'll be super cool paranormal romance. It's not YA, but it's also not graphically sexual, so I'd say it's fine for my older teen fans on up. Here's the really unique part of the series - the idea for the books was thought up and written exclusively by women authors who have also served in our armed forces. Some of you know I was active duty Air Force back in the day, so I'm really proud to be included in this project. The series leads off with four books, beginning with the first release in August, THE SEEKER by Lindsay McKenna. In September Cindy Dees' THE SLAYER will be released, and in October my book, THE AVENGER, will be out. The final book, by my good friend Merline Lovelace, THE PROTECTOR, releases. The series has danger and time travel and a whole we-have-to-save-the-world theme. I'll post my cover as soon as I have it. In the meantime you guys can check out more about all four fantastic books at: www.timeraidersseries.com.

I heart you guys!
PC

Back from paradise and off to New York City!

Here's a lovely picture taken from our vacation balcony. Sooooo gorgeous!

I wanted to let y'all know we'll be headed to New York City to appear on Good Morning America Thursday, May 28th. We'll also be featured on Nightline that night.

I'm in the middle of rewrites of TEMPTED. Yep - there are always rewrites, which I really don't mind as it makes for a better book.

Wish us luck on GMA and here's hoping we don't sound moronic on Nightline...

XXXOOO
PC