Every so often I do one of these posts, mostly for new followers at various places to catch folks up on who I am, what I do and an update for everyone on what I’m working on. So …
Who am I?
I’m Melanie Scott (most commonly answering to Mel). I write books. Specifically I write fantasy (dark and urban) as M.J. Scott and contemporary romance as Melanie Scott.
M.J’s two current series are the Half-Light City series (dark fantasy) published by Roc and The Wild Side series (published by moi).
Melanie’s current series is the New York Saints series (contemporary romance). Book 1 in that series THE DEVIL IN DENIM will be out on August 26. Publisher’s Weekly picked it as one of their Top 10 Fall 2014 romances, so that was pretty cool. Read more/pre-order etc here.
My agent is Miriam Kriss at the Irene Goodman Literary Agency.
More specifically I’m of the female persuasion, I have a day job that I don’t tend to talk about much online and I have so far survived all the deadly critters that my home country of Australia likes to strew in the path of its citizens. I live in Melbourne where there are few deadly critters and a lot of very changeable weather. So I am forced to whine about the weather. It’s a Melbournian pastime. I drink Coke Zero. Coffee makes me sick (sadface). I like geeky things, movies, tv, ballet, knitting, food, photography, naps, travel and books. I also have my girly moments (nails/make up/perfume/sparkly things/bags/shoes). I am an experienced cat butler. My two current feline employers are the Torti (a relatively sane for a calico/tortoiseshell girl who like rattly mice and glaring out windows at birds and other cats who have the temerity to wander into her line of vision) and the Fuzzy Girl (a slightly less sane, built like Garfield, tad un-coordinated, very chatty fluffy grey and white girl). The previous employers (if you go delving into the archives) were the Orange Cat (a very sweet but neurotic red burmese boy) and the Grey Cat (possibly the most sane of my cats, a fluffy smoke tabby moggy girl). I hang out with friends of the writer and non writer variety and I am slightly prone to klutziness (maybe that’s why the Fuzzy Girl appealed to me). I am not kidding, I broke my ankle getting up from my couch. I am currently attempting to garden though it’s winter here so not much can be done. My thumb may be a very pale green with black spots. I have also, over the last six months or so been playing with watercolour and drawing which is much fun. I am team Iron Man, team Buffy, team Thor, team Ollicity, team genre, team animation, team happy endings are the best, team chocolate (preferably dark), team margarita, team science, team musical, team music in general, team my heart belongs to Number 10, team reading is sexy, team thinking, team virgo, team don’t be a douche and team life is better with folks who make you laugh.
More about the books, please?
The Half-Light City series is an alt-world dark fantasy quadrology. It has fae and vampires and werewolves and magic and follows a bunch of characters through a particularly troublesome time in the Half-Light City which houses many races and many problems. All four books SHADOW KIN, BLOOD KIN, IRON KIN and FIRE KIN are available at all the usual places.
The Wild Side series is an urban fantasy trilogy which follows the adventures of Ashley Keenan who is trying very hard to be a normal boring human accountant but all the pesky werewolves and vampires in her world make that difficult. The first book, THE WOLF WITHIN, came out January in ebook. I suspect I will do a print version at some point. At this stage, the second book, THE DARK SIDE, is due to be released in September. I’m also working on a prequel short story that I also hope to get out in September.
The New York Saints series is a contemporary romance trilogy about three guys who buy the New York Saints (the worst team in MLB) and the women who complicate the process. As mentioned above, the first book, THE DEVIL IN DENIM, will be out on August 26. The second book, ANGEL IN ARMANI, will be out on 30 December and the third book LAWLESS IN LEATHER in May 2015 (unless that changes for some reason).
What are you working on?
Last year’s writing schedule was a bit nutty. Which meant, naturally, that life decided to sideswipe me with other stuff. Including a four month or so bout of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo which was very unpleasant. Which has meant six months of trying to WRITE ALL THE THINGS but I am almost caught up.
I just handed in LAWLESS IN LEATHER last month before I jetted off to the Romance Writers of America conference in San Antonio. So I’ll be revising that soon. I’m currently doing the final stage (galleys) of ANGEL IN ARMANI and writing THE SHATTERED COURT, the first book of my new fantasy series for Roc, which will be out sometime next year. After that, well, that kind of depends. But I’m planning to write BRING ON THE NIGHT, book 3 of my Wild Side trilogy as soon as I can but that will be subject to commitments elsewhere. I’d like to do some Half-Light shorts at some point. Everything else under consideration currently falls under the heading of sekrit squirrel business which can’t be discussed publicly. But I still haven’t received either my clone army or my allocation of minions yet so projects to be completed as time allows. If you want to be updated about things as they happen, sign up for my newsletters. M.J here and Melanie here.
Tell me more…
Places I hang out include here on the blog (but hey, you knew that already). I love me some twitter and @melscott will find me there. I tend to be most active on twitter but you know, internet procrastination for the win, so I hang out elsewhere.
M.J’s facebook page is www.facebook.com/AuthorMJScott and Melanie’s is www.facebook.com/WriterMelanieScott. If you’re into Google+ I’m here
I like to take pictures, so if you like looking at pictures, my Instagram handle is melwrites. I also post various pics on FB and twitter. I use an iPhone 5 and a Canon DSLR mostly.
