biancadarc.com Blog

Great Reviews for INFERNO

The reviews have finally started coming in for my most recent paranormal adventure, INFERNO.

PNR said: “Inferno is an explosive tale of danger and passion.” You can read the full review here.

Romance Junkies said: “Bianca D’Arc has penned an incredibly riveting and steamy story…anyone looking for a well written, action-packed, paranormal romance will be more than satisfied with this gem of a novel.” Read the full review here.

My very special thanks to reviewers Amanda Haffery and Cheryl McInnis for taking the time to read and review my book.

If you haven’t read INFERNO yet, you can get it in ebook formats from MBAM. (It’ll be in print next summer).

Grady Awakens Tuesday 8/18!

My newest and longest book to date is coming out next week. Look for GRADY’S AWAKENING releasing from Samhain Publishing on Tuesday, August 18th. Grady is what they call a “plus novel” meaning it’s over 100,000 words. There was just so much to talk about in this great story that I could’ve kept going and going.

As it is, I think fans of my Resonance Mates series will enjoy the book. It features Grady Prime, the alien super soldier we’ve gotten to know here and there in the previous three books. He is paired with Gina, a human martial arts champion and spy for a secret sect of Alvians. The third in their relationship is former CIA operative, Jim, who knew Gina in the old days as a young girl who’d been off limits. Now she’s all grown up and times have changed. The story delves into how these three very dissimilar people can make a relationship not only work, but transcend the barriers of race — for Jim and Gina are human. Grady’s an alien.

This is the fourth book in the Resonance Mates series. The reading order is:

Hara’s Legacy

Davin’s Quest

Jaci’s Experiment

Grady’s Awakening

And there will be one more book to complete the story arc. I haven’t written it yet but I’m calling it Harry’s Sacrifice. For those of you worried that the word ’sacrifice’ means I’m going to torture poor Harry, fear not. I wouldn’t be so cruel. He’ll get his Happily Ever After. It’ll just take a bit of doing to get to that point.

I’ll be posting the blurb and an excerpt in days to come. In the meantime, if you haven’t tried this series yet, why not give it a whirl? It’s got aliens and menage. Who could ask for more?

Wallpaper Wednesdays

1600×1200 – 1280×1024 – 1024×768 – 800×600

Click on the size you want, then right click and “save as background” on most systems.

Enter to Win a Cool*er Ebook Reader!

Get Cool*er this summer!

We know this summer’s been a scorcher, that’s why a group of us have teamed up to offer you a chance to find some fun new books and win a brand new Cool*er eReader to read them on!

We know this summer’s been a scorcher, that’s why a group of us have teamed up to offer you a chance to find some fun new books and win a brand new Cool*er eReader to read them on!This device weighs about 6 ounces, is the size of a trade paperback, is totally sleek, and sells for $249.99 (cheaper than the Sony or the Kindle). The Cool*er uses  eInk technology and will read PDF, EPUB, FB2, RTF, TXT, HTML, PRC, JPG AND MP3. More importantly, thanks to Leila Brown, Bianca D’Arc, Eliza Gayle, Cat Johnson, and Samantha Sommersby, it could be yours. As a bonus we’ll even pre load it with a book from each sponsoring author!

We know this summer’s been a scorcher, that’s why a group of us have teamed up to offer you a chance to find some fun new books and win a brand new Cool*er eReader to read them on!This device weighs about 6 ounces, is the size of a trade paperback, is totally sleek, and sells for $249.99 (cheaper than the Sony or the Kindle). The Cool*er uses  eInk technology and will read PDF, EPUB, FB2, RTF, TXT, HTML, PRC, JPG AND MP3. More importantly, thanks to Leila Brown, Bianca D’Arc, Eliza Gayle, Cat Johnson, and Samantha Sommersby, it could be yours. As a bonus we’ll even pre load it with a book from each sponsoring author!To enter the contest simply send an email to coolercontest@gmail.com with the word “Contest” in the subject*. You must include your snail mail address.

Would you like a bonus chance entry to win?  All you have to do is share the contest widget by clicking on the graphic above to get to the contest post on Eliza’s blog (she has the Sprout widget posted), click on the “share” button on the widget, copy the code and paste it on your blog, website or MySpace page. Then tell us in the comments section exactly where you’ve posted it.  If you don’t have a blog, you can Tweet the details or post it on a message board.

Every time you share the image it counts as another entry.

*Entrants will be added to authors mailing lists

New Nikes in NYC

I bought these new Nikes with the little secret compartment for the sensor thingy that links with my new ipod. They’re meant to be used at the gym or out running but I thought “why not give them a spin walking back to Penn Station?” I did and it was fun. The little sensor thingy registered every step of my 20-minute mile. LOL!

So why was I in NYC yesterday, you ask? First, I live really close. In fact, in my former career, I used to commute every day to Manhattan to go to work. When people talk about the “rat race”? Well, I’ve been there, done that, got the T-shirt and all that. But yesterday, I went into Manhattan to meet my agent for the first time in person. I was invited to an event at the literary agency which I thought was the perfect opportunity to both learn something about “platform” (which was the topic) and meet the woman I’ve been working with for the past few months.

It turned out to be a wonderful late afternoon. The event started at 4pm, so my train ride in was mostly empty. (Everyone is going in the other direction at that time of day.) The people doing the presentation brought wine and cheese, which was a nice touch. And the guy giving the presentation was a lot of fun and put up with a peppering of questioning (maybe it was more like heckling) from the audience of authors and agents.

A quick change into my sneakers in the elevator and I was ready to see how this Nike stuff worked. Keep in mind, I got out of there around 6pm. A little after prime, but still rush hour in NYC. I walked uptown – a distance I considered “just a few blocks” that turned out to be well over a mile. Imagine my surprise. It was only ten short blocks and two long ones. (The distance between numbered streets is short. The space between the avenues is much longer.)

I was dodging people, stopped to browse cheap sunglasses at a street vendor or two and waiting for traffic lights or traffic to clear so I could keep going. It took me about 20 minutes to get back to Penn. But the data the chip collected was better than any I’ve had from a pedometer. It was more accurate, for one thing, since it registers every step I take. (I’ve had lots of bad luck with pedometers getting tilted or positioned wrong and not registering.) It gave me distance, elapsed time, calories burned and some other stuff. It’s really a great little gadget!

I hopped a train and was back home in time for my chat at Romance Junkies last night, which was also a lot of fun. All in all, a great day!

Live Chat Tonight at Romance Junkies!

I’ll be featured in the Romance Junkies chat room tonight at 9pm eastern time. Myself and 2 other Samhain authors will be sharing the spotlight, so chances are I’ll have about 20 minutes to take center stage. I hope you’ll join me! RJ chats are always a blast and I’ll be talking about my upcoming Samhain release, GRADY’S AWAKENING.

Here’s the direct link to the chatroom: http://www.romancejunkies.com/chat.html

Hope to see you there!

DRAGON STORM – Snippet

I’m editing this right now and I just wanted to share a tidbit from the part I’m working on right now. I’m evil that way. >:)

DRAGON STORM is scheduled to come out in ebook this November (print in 2010). This is from early on in the book…

She reached the final corridor that would lead her to one of the many landing areas for the multitude of dragons that came and went from the castle daily. This corridor had arched windows every few feet that looked out over the city far below. The sun shone bright inside at this time of day. It was a lovely place with little bench seats placed in some of the alcoves between windows for both utility and comfort. Knights often paused here to settle their packs on their backs when they came in from patrol or a longer journey. And she’d seen others just sitting, enjoying the morning sun from time to time as she traversed the long hallway.

Shanya was about halfway down the corridor when she felt the distinct lightheadedness that usually prefaced a strong vision. She stumbled for the closest seat but was too far away to make it before the vision hit her full force.

When she would have fallen to the stone floor, a pair of strong arms came around her, catching her as she swooned.

That was all she knew until the vision released her some minutes later.

Her eyes blinked twice, able to see the real world once more—no longer seeing the future possibilities. She was confused as the faces above her came into focus. She’d just seen them and now here they were. Then she realized she’d seen their future. The very men she’d seen in her vision were here now, with her in the present.

“You will travel far in search of the one with ancient magic who will help you defend the Citadel.”

Romance in the News

Was anybody else insulted by the recent Washington Post article titled When Romance Writers Gather, The Plot Quickens? While the reporter tried to give the article a smiley face ending, she also managed to get in all the digs she possibly could in the front three quarters of the piece. It felt like she sought out the most outrageous quotes she could find to support her theory that all romance writers are slobbering orgasm-crazy fiends. The female equivalent of sweaty men at a peep show in the old Times Square (before Disney moved in).

Here’s a particularly irritating quote: “You are whining, They’re just writing FORMULAS. To which the astute romance writer will reply: So?”

I’ve never consciously written to a formula in my life. I wonder how many successful romance writers are writing formulaic prose? (Let’s hold Harlequin/Silhouette and their secret baby/marriage of convenience penchant aside for the moment.) Is Linda Howard or Nora writing formula? Is anyone who’s successful really sitting down in front of their computers, rubbing their hands together and saying to themselves “okay, let’s make this novel fit the formula.”

I seriously doubt it. While I agree there may be things that are universal themes – good v. evil, the heroic quest, Romeo/Juliette, etc… – I just don’t agree that the majority of romance is written to some secret formula.

Then in a schitzophrenic move, a new article appeared on the Washington Post site. This one titled Romance Novels Still Fighting For Respect by Ron Charles. This guy gets it. He actually took a moment to listen to what the successful writers and booksellers were saying at the recent RWA convention in DC. He had the good sense to talk to my friend, Rosemary Potter of Rosemary’s Romance Books in Brisbane, Australia. As many Aussies do, she no doubt gave him straight talk about what’s what in the romance world.

This part of his article struck me most:

In a sense, romance still labors under the burden that used to weigh on all fiction. Puritan sermons in the 17th century were spiked with warnings about reading novels. Thomas Jefferson railed against novels, too, claiming they were “a great obstacle to good education…a poison [that] infects the mind. The result is a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the real businesses of life.”

He went on to talk about Eloisa James. While Eloisa is an interesting case of a highly educated woman writing and succeeding at romance, she isn’t by any means the only one. I’m a lawyer. So is Caridad Pinero, Nalini Singh, JR Ward, and a number of others I could name. Then there’s Jennifer Cruise – also a literature professor, if I remember correctly. There are lots and lots of other highly educated women writing and reading romance. So why does everyone assume romance is for “stupid” women with nothing better to do?

It’s insulting and incorrect. Articles like the first one I mentioned only play into prolonging the myth. At least Mr. Charles gets it. Kudos to him for telling the truth and not going for the cheap laugh at the expense of a legitmate, successful, and growing industry.