Nephilim

See this guy on the cover? I know him!
He's a friend on Facebook: Jimmy Thomas.
What a dish!

Okay, I admit it. Today is about shameless self promotion again. I know, I know. I should be more modest, more gracious...but dang it, I'm not! I'm happy and I want to share why!

My urban fantasy, Nephilim was released on Monday of this week and is now available for your eReaders and laptops at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders (throw those guys a bone, will ya), Lyrical Press Inc., Manic Readers, and a bunch of other cool sites. Nope, it's not in paper back yet, but that should be a possibility really soon...

Nephilim is a urban fantasy I began working on about two and half years ago. Though I'd had several short stories about my protagonist, Nathan Ink, already written, it was during NaNoWriMo that I sat down and wrote out his story.  The editing process was lengthy and the manuscript was rejected a thousand times. But along the rejection path, I got invaluable free advice from various agents and editors. Listening to them is what ultimately got me on the road to publication.

If you are not sure what urban fantasy is, here is a brief definition:

Urban fantasies are stories with otherworldly creatures in them which take place on earth. They typically occur in modern times, and usually the setting is a city or well-populated area.  There can be a sprinkling of romance between characters, but it doesn’t necessarily have to have a happy ending. A mystery will unfold during the tale, keeping the reader turning the pages. Many times the story will arc over a series of books. Of course, there are exceptions to all of the things I just stated, but those are the basics. A few examples of current urban fantasy titles you may recognize are any of the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris or the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.

I really enjoy urban fantasy, though it is fun to write in other genres, too. I think it's important to read outside your genre in order to be the best writer you can be.  So with that in mind, here's a synopsis of Nephilim.

When sin stains your soul, he tattoos your skin…

 Tattoo artist Nathan Ink is more than he seems. An angel living in secret on earth, he forces his clients to face their flaws by tattooing images of their sins on their bodies, but this glimpse into the soul often results in his clients' deaths. Although Nathan avoids the other angels, when they ask him to keep an eye on Faye, a nephilim being stalked by another of her kind, he reluctantly agrees.

The angels have kept Faye in the dark about her stalker, but to keep her close to Nathan, they've tasked her with investigating the high mortality rate of Nathan's clients. Despite her distaste for his methods, she finds herself fighting a growing attraction to Nathan, and discovering he's not a rogue after all forces her to question her own mission. When Faye learns her stalker is another nephilim who intends to use her to breed a new race of hellish beings, teaming up with Nathan may be the only way to prevent a genocide.
Contains strong language and violence