Author Archives: Susan Illene

About Susan Illene

Susan Illene served in the US Army for eleven years and worked as a human resources specialist and an Arabic linguist. She served two deployments to Iraq, and after leaving the army, she studied history at the University of Oklahoma. She currently lives with her husband and two sons.

Cover reveal for “Playing with Darkness” book 3.5 of the Sensor Series

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As I’d mentioned in a previous post, if the spin-off story for Melena returning the fae device to Feidlimid grew too long I would be publishing it with the retailers. That did happen! I hope no one minds. At the end of the post you can see the cover and official summary for the novella.

Anyone who has contacted me already or who does so in the future will still be getting it free via email when it’s ready. Those who have not specified their ereader type will be getting the PDF version unless they tell me something different before then. Otherwise it will just cost 99 cents to purchase on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and iTunes.

It will be available on May 31st and I will post links here and on Facebook as they become available.

When it was just going to be a short story I hadn’t needed a cover, but once I realized how long it was becoming I had to have one designed. Sable has a key part in the novella so I thought it might be nice to include her this time on the cover. Hope you all like it!

SUMMARY:

There’s no avoiding it. Melena must keep her promise to return the fae device that opens the portal to Purgatory. Except there’s one problem—Kerbasi. How can she go when she has one of heaven’s minions practically attached to her hip? One who will strike fear in the hearts of the fae the moment they realize who he is.

When her shape-shifter cat suddenly gets sick, she can’t delay the trip any longer. Only the fae can help get Sable healthy again. And if Kerbasi tries to cause any trouble while they are there, she’ll just have to find creative ways to keep him in line.

************

Add to your Goodreads shelf here.

Darkness Divides playlist and other news

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First off, those of you who were with me on Facebook last night know that I picked a title for the novella I’m releasing at the end of this month (May). After much debate and help with readers we decided on “Playing with Darkness”. I’ve already got the cover art done and will reveal it as soon as the typography is on there. It’s really looking amazing, especially with Sable joining Melena for this one.

I also want to thank all the fans for their support. In the first thirty days since Darkness Divides has released it has sold over 3600 copies between all retailers and is still going strong. This was much more than I expected for this early on! It’s also reached as high as #3 on the New Release Best Seller list for Dark Fantasy and #6 on the regular list. With authors like Charlaine Harris topping it, I’m happy to get that far. I couldn’t have done it without readers like you all spreading the word about the series 🙂

Now, we’ll get on with the playlist that inspired my writing Darkness Divides and what I’m also using for the follow-up novella. If you’ve got some suggestions for me to use with Darkness Clashes feel free to let me know in the comments. All songs below are linked to their albums on iTunes in case you’d like to check them out further.

1) “Roar” by Katy Perry

2) “Brave” by Sara Bareilles

*Thanks to the Microsoft tablet commercials for getting this one stuck in my head (my husband likes to play the television in deafening volumes from the other room while I’m writing in what I suspect is an attempt to drive me crazy). The lyrics to this song are rather inspiring, though.

3) “Bent” by Matchbox Twenty

*Especially influenced the first few chapters of the novel.

4) “Disease” by Matchbox Twenty

5) “Unwell” by Matchbox Twenty

6) “Dark Horse” by Katy Perry

*Especially influenced the fae city portion of the novel.

7) “This Is My Now” by Jordin Sparks

8) “Human” by Christina Perri

*Especially influenced the early part of the novel.

9) “Don’t Cry” by Guns N’ Roses

10) “Intuition” by Jewel

*This song just helped get me in a good mood to write 🙂

11) “You Were Meant For Me” by Jewel

12) “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC

*Influenced the last half of the book

13) “Hells Bells” by AC/DC

*Influenced the last half of the book

13) “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC

*Influenced the last half of the book and always makes me think of Lucas and Mel together

14) “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC

*Influenced the last half of the book

15) “Carry On Wayward Son” by Kansas

*Influenced the last half of the book

16) “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith

17) “Cryin’” by Aerosmith

18) “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” by Guns N’ Roses

That’s it for now. Expect another post soon with more information about the upcoming novella, Playing with Darkness, book 3.5!

Series Updates…

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First off, thanks to everyone who has bought/read/reviewed Darkness Divides so far. Release day was a busy one, but really awesome. I truly appreciate it!

Next, those of you who follow me on Facebook or have visited the book page on this site have probably noticed I’ll be releasing a short story at the end of May. I’m going to try to avoid spoilers here for anyone who hasn’t read Darkness Divides yet, but if you’ve finished the book you’ll get what I mean despite my vagueness.

This story will cover Melena returning the device she was still holding onto at the end of book 3. Naturally, she’ll have her new “tag along” with her (as we like to refer to this person on Facebook to avoid spoilers) and that will cause some problems. Sable, the shape-shifter kitty, will also be joining Melena for different reasons.

I’ve said this is going to be a short story, but as I began plotting it out recently a few more characters insisted on taking part so it may be closer to the length of my story in the New Year’s anthology. That one was a little over 10k words. It’s not going to be as action-packed as the books, but you can expect a decent bit of humor and some adventure.

What is the title? I have no idea at this point, but I’m open to suggestions.

At this stage my plan is to provide free PDF copies of the story to anyone who emails me. I may also add it to Goodreads and make it available for download there. If by some crazy set of circumstances my muse makes me write something that goes beyond 15k words I may also put it up on the retailer sites for 99 cents. The main reason I’d charge even that much is because Amazon won’t let me set it at free and because if I publish it with the retailers I’m going to have to have a cover designed. That would at least help me recoup my costs with it. Since I’d promised to provide it for free, though, I will still offer it at no charge if you contact me (the same as the New Year’s story). You’ll be able to grab it whichever way you prefer and I’ll be happy so long as you enjoy it 🙂

For Goodreads users, I have added Darkness Clashes (book 4) onto the site. No cover or blurb yet, but I’ll release those sometime in late July. If you’d like to add it to your shelf this is the link:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21963515-darkness-clashes

Also, I’ve started a paperback giveaway for the first novel in the series, Darkness Haunts. Members of Goodreads can go there to enter.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Darkness Haunts

by Susan Illene

Giveaway ends May 07, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I will have at least one other giveaway for series paperbacks here on my blog, and several on Facebook during the month of May. If you’re interested, be sure to be on the lookout!

If anyone has any other questions, feel free to ask them below.

Winners for paperback giveaway

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Thanks to all the wonderful comments everyone wrote on the Darkness Divides release day announcement. I put all your names into a random name picker site to select three. This was more than I originally planned, but I wanted to increase everyone’s chances of getting a copy. The following names are the winners:

place #1: Chantal
place #2: Rachael B
place #3: Rosemary

I will be emailing everyone who commented on the previous post to get your addresses to send bookmarks, but the three names listed above can also expect to receive a signed paperback copy of Darkness Haunts (new version) in the mail as well. If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow (April 24th…or 25th for Aussies), check your spam folder or use the contact page to message me.

For those still wanting to win a paperback copy you will have another chance. I’m setting up a giveaway on Goodreads for three more of Darkness Haunts. As soon as it is approved, I’ll post the link here and on Facebook for where you can enter.

In the coming weeks I will also do random giveaways for paperback copies of Darkness Taunts and Chained by Darkness on Facebook. For those you will have to be the first to answer a story question derived from Darkness Divides. Be on the lookout for those. I will wait until after this coming weekend to allow time for readers to get through the book.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Darkness Divides is now Available!

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Thanks to everyone for their patience. I’m excited to let you all know Darkness Divides is now available on Amazon and as soon as it is available with other retailers I’ll post the links for them here as well. For those wondering, this novel came to almost 108k words, which is the longest one I’ve released yet (see the book tab above for word count on the others). This is honestly my favorite novel so far, but I’m biased so I’ll leave it up to you all to decide what you think!

As a release day bonus, the first twenty people who comment on this post will be eligible to get a set of series bookmarks (regardless of where you’re from). Be sure to put a valid email address in the comment field so I can contact you. Two random people from among the twenty will also get a free signed paperback copy of Darkness Haunts (the first book in the series).

*Update- The full number of comments has been reached. I’ll be contacting everyone soon to get your addresses to send the bookmarks and I’ll announce on a separate post who won the paperback books.

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