Cover Reveal -- The Spirit of Giving

A sneak peek at the adorable new cover for "The Spirit of Giving" which is re-releasing in a sparkly new revised edition in early December. Fluffy festive M/M romance, the perfect gift! 😆😉

Piracy

Well, I think three weeks is actually the longest it's taken for my books to go up on pirate sites -- they used to go up on the day of release, which was fun -- but I knew I'd need to make this post sooner or later.

If you're going to pirate books anyway, this isn't for you. You already don't care, which is absolutely your prerogative, but I still hope you understand how damaging it is.

If you wouldn't do a day's work if you employer proceeded to turn around and go "Yeeeeah, we're just not gonna pay you for your labor or time," at the end of your shift, then please consider not doing it to artists either. We're not some magical, mythical entitled race of beings -- we're human beings, with bills, and families, and need to survive just like you. If you value your own time and hard work (and everyone should) then maybe take a second to think about why you don't value a writer's the same way.

Let's be real, at the end of the day, a book about two guys shagging isn't exactly a necessity for anyone. It's not food, or shelter, or an education. It's not, as is often conflated in the "information should be free!" argument, enabling you to live a life of peace, democracy, free from corruption and with all your human rights intact. Entertainment of this kind is more akin to a treat, a luxury. And most of us, when we legitimately can't afford treats and luxuries, we either save up and savor them, go without, or in the case of books, lend from a library (which is NOT an equivalence to piracy; that's one of the most pernicious myths of all, right up there along with "If they pirate your new book, they'll go out and buy the others!" Like, no, Jan, they'll just ask their pirating buddies for the rest of your back-catalog, which is precisely what they did with me). We don't just take because it's not in the budget this month.

On the other hand, If you're someone who would genuinely buy a book if it was available in your country, or can't access it for some other reason, then I'd much prefer it if you guys contacted me before you grab my books from pirate sites. It's not only that adding to piracy site statistics is bad for me (by bumping up pirate site results in Google searches over legit retail outlets), they suck for you, too. They're often sketchy, either demanding credit card information for books they don't actually have (i.e. phishing scams), or they're infested with malware and spyware.

Everything I self-publish is going as wide as it can on Amazon. If that still doesn't cover your location etc. then like I said, drop me a line -- catkanewrites@gmail.com

Ten Years and One Rewrite

"The House on Sheridan Street" was originally written in 2008. It came out in December, but in the way of things in publishing, it had been finished and sent in much earlier in the year. By the time of its release, it was probably already an inaccurate reflection of the property market.

Ten years and one rewrite later, I'm realizing that global financial crises aren't the only unforeseen event that's turned this story into something very different to the original.

I can't remember where the idea initially came from -- I do remember that, at the time, I was deeply fascinated by urban exploration, in particular people who explored abandoned places. The eerie, hauntingly beautiful photos they'd post of disused buildings, vacant houses and derelict theme parks stirred something in me that was unsettled and mesmerized all at once. There was such a profound wrongness to these places, locations that should've been teeming with the mundanity of everyday human life -- offices, hotels, shopping malls, schools, hospitals -- standing hollowed out and empty, their ordinary contents left exactly where they'd been when the last person turned out the lights and closed the door. Waiting, it seemed to me. Like someone was going to step through the door any second, and the normal world would kick right back in. The idea for the eponymous 'house' came from that, from the sense that these silent, forgotten places held stories and secrets of their own.

Gale and Nathan came afterwards (names I picked up, as an aside, from my spam mail folder!), but with a hard word limit of 20k, they never really had the chance to come alive in the way I'd wanted. They were almost metaphors for the house themselves, waiting for some life to be breathed into them.

I've had much more leeway to do that in the re-write. And, in exploring and expanding the characters' backstories in more depth -- and their uneasy, messy relationships with their respective families -- I find I'm tapping into things I never, ever expected I'd use for my writing. Things that, ten years ago, hadn't even been on my radar. Things that, two years ago, I never wanted to touch, things I was perfectly happy to shove to the back of my mind and leave there. I was treating memories and emotions the same way people treated those abandoned places -- shut off the light, close the door, pretend it doesn't exist anymore. But writing, stories, are how I process and understand my world, so I shouldn't be surprised those things refused to stay there. I'm still not okay with writing about them -- I don't think I ever will be -- but maybe this way I can process a little tangentially anyway. Maybe I can at least give Gale and Nathan a truthfulness their story deserves.

And it's made me realize how true it is that sometimes, a story just isn't ready for us, or we're not ready for it. We don't have the experience, or the understanding necessary to quite do it justice, to give it honesty. I've always been a proponent of that reading of "Write what you know" -- as in, write the things you know you feel -- and I think that's just an extension of it.

Sometimes we don't know what we feel until we can look back at it and see. Sometimes the door's not closed as firmly as we like to imagine.

Hung Up -- Excerpt

It's 10 days until the release of "Hung Up", so to whet your appetite for cocky cowboys and grouchy veterinarians, here's a sneak peek at an excerpt from Chapter One!

He arrived in town five minutes shy of a thunderstorm, and, all things considered, Billy Valentine figured that was the story of his life.

After pitching up the trailer at the fairground, he took refuge from the deluge in the cab of his truck, where the heater and the radio blared, and the letter he’d picked up that morning sat on the pile of junk in the passenger seat. He glared at it through three songs straight, as though that might influence the contents.

Get a fucking grip, Billy…

Despite the soothing drum of the rain on the windshield, the sound of paper tearing jangled his nerves. Unfolding the neat, letter-headed paper inside the envelope, he scanned the impersonally polite letter until he got to the part that began, "Unfortunately, your application was not successful."

Of course it wasn’t. Crumpling up the letter and the envelope, he shoved both into the pocket of his jacket.

Human Nature -- Cover Art

Human Nature has a cover! Please excuse me, I'll be the drooling wibbly mess in the corner....

Human Nature -- Coming Soon from Liquid Silver Books

Coming soon from Liquid Silver Books, "Human Nature" is a paranormal gay menage.

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Left for dead by hunters, werewolf Dominic finds refuge at the isolated home of reclusive demon Gage and his human servant Randall. Healing from the attack, physically and mentally, Dominic has no choice but to rely on his grudging host and his enigmatic assistant.

Hidden away from humans for decades, the last thing Gage wants is a werewolf bringing trouble to his doorstep. Keeping Randall at arm's length is problematic enough, but allowing Dominic to stay seems like the safest option–at least until Gage finds himself drawn to Dominic as much as he is to Randall.

Randall has his own reasons for driving Dominic into Gage’s arms. It’s only a matter of time until Gage discovers the secrets Randall’s been keeping—secrets that will surely destroy their fragile, undefined relationship. Still, the pull of the powerful desire that binds them all leaves him wishing there was a way to keep them both.

But as the outside world encroaches on Gage’s sanctuary, all those secrets are about to collide, unleashing a dangerous tide of betrayal, deception and love, and all three men will have to re-evaluate their priorities, their relationships, and who—or what—they are.

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To read an excerpt and keep up to date with all the info about Human Nature, check out the Liquid Silver Books forum!

Afterthought -- Cover Art and Sneak Peek

The cover for "Afterthought" is here, and I'm really pleased with it!



There's also a new short extract from "Afterthought" up at my site!

Coming Soon from Liquid Silver Books!

Best Laid Plans by Cat Kane



Sometimes, nothing goes according to plan...

Wedding co-ordinator Eliott doesn't think his nose-diving career can get much worse. After the wedding disaster of the decade, the last thing he needs is to get involved with his new client. Dylan's wedding is supposed to be Eliott's new start, his second chance, but not when it risks everything he's worked for, everything he thought was right.

Dylan never intended to fall for the wedding planner, and despite his `bride's` encouragement he can't bring himself to tell Eliott the truth behind their plans. If Eliott knew the real reason they'd approached him, everything would be ruined. But as time goes on and his feelings for Eliott deepen, how long can he keep pretending the wedding is nothing more than convenience?