Hurray! It’s release day for my paranormal romance Soul Keeper! I love release days and the rush I get with being able to share a new world with everyone! I particularly love Mara and Rai’s story starring a sassy human who doesn’t let herself get bossed around by a grumpy half-demon who’s used to getting his way. Writing about how they eventually fall in love was so much fun, and Soul Keeper is my favorite of the books that I’ve written so far. I hope you enjoy their story!
Mara All I want to do is relax and take it easy as a fresh college grad before starting my new nursing job. Instead, I end up getting hauled onto some domineering jerk’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes and dragged into some twisted game between druids and demons.
This. Is. Not. In. My. Plans.
When I play, I play to win, so sorry—I’m changing the rules of this game.
Rai Show me an enemy to destroy, and it’s done. Give me a human to protect and…
There has to be another option, right?
No? Fine—protecting a human from my demon brothers shouldn’t be that hard. Protecting myself from this tempting human—not that I’m admitting that she’s tempting—may be the hardest fight of my life.
Join two unlikely allies, human Mara and half-demon Rai, as they fight to win a twisted game of Soul Keepers. This is the second book in a connected series of standalone paranormal romance novels that can be read on their own but best read in order. This slow-burn, spicy story contains enemies-to-lovers and forced proximity themes and ends in a HEA. Approximately 67k words.
I can’t believe we’re already into October! We’ve got one more week until Soul Keeper‘s release, and I’m so excited to share Mara and Rai’s story with everyone! I made a little Tik Tok video that I hope captures the light-hearted and fun vibe from the book. There are also dark parts since it is a paranormal romance, but my muse wanted to also make it a fun book for our two leads that have not-so-fun backstories.
With the kids back in school, I had figured I’d be able to get back into the swing of things with writing. Unfortunately, I’m an optimist, so reality hit me hard this month. Having a kiddo in middle school is a huge change for our family, and combined with my youngest also starting a new school, sports, and health issues with the kids…well, let’s just say that writing had to take a back seat. I’m really pushing myself to get Soul Keeper out next Tuesday as planned. I wish I could say the same about my other books, but I wasn’t able to make any other progress in writing in September. I’m hoping our routines will settle down so that I’ll be able to focus on Liz’s story and make some progress with her duet this month.
Happy reading, and see you next week on release day!
This book is my absolute favorite, and I’m thrilled to share Mara and Rai’s story with all of you! Mara is a sassy and strong heroine who isn’t too pleased about getting dragged into a war between druids and demons. Rai is a grumpy half-demon who’s been a fighter his entire life, and for the first time, finds himself losing against a human who doesn’t seem to have the good sense to fear him. This is the second book in my Demon Soulmates series, and while best read in order, you can jump straight into this book if the first book, Soul Enchanter, isn’t your jam. While Soul Enchanter contains more serious and angsty themes, Soul Keeper has more over-the-top humor along with some dark themes.
Here’s the official blurb:
Mara
All I want to do is relax and take it easy as a fresh college grad before starting my new nursing job. Instead, I end up getting hauled onto some domineering jerk’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes and dragged into some twisted game between druids and demons.
This. Is. Not. In. My. Plans.
When I play, I play to win, so sorry—I’m changing the rules of this game.
Rai
Show me an enemy to destroy, and it’s done. Give me a human to protect and…
there has to be another option, right?
No? Fine—protecting a human from my demon brothers shouldn’t be that hard. Protecting myself from this tempting human—not that I’m admitting that she’s tempting—may be the hardest fight of my life.
Join two unlikely allies, human Mara and half-demon Rai, as they fight to win a twisted game of Soul Keepers. This is the second book in a connected series of standalone paranormal romance novels that can be read on their own but best read in order. This slow-burn, spicy story contains enemies-to-lovers and forced proximity themes and ends in a HEA. Approximately 67k words.
Happy reading, and expect some teasers closer to release day!
Happy Mid-Summer! I can’t believe the summer is half-way over with school starting in little over a month. We’ve been enjoying the summer break with family vacations, camps, and kid activities. Writing got pushed to the back seat, but I still somehow managed to still get Soul Keeper polished and on track for a Fall release.
I updated my goals for the rest of 2023, and hopefully it’ll be doable! Both kiddos are starting new schools in Sept, so I’m guessing that it’ll take us time to figure out our new routines. I am really hoping to get some paperbacks out, but I know I’ve been saying that since last year! I’m close to two more goals: Soul Keeper should be ready in Sept/Oct 2023 and Liz’s 1st book is about 10k words shy of a completed rough draft. Liz’s second book is about half way done, and Rose’s novella is about a fifth in, so I’m feeling good about those goals, too!
That’s about it for this writing update—I hope to have some teasers out for Soul Keeper in Sept! Happy reading!
Happy Spring! I’m glad winter is finally over and am looking forward to some warmth and sunshine! Winter was extra tough this year with illnesses, so I ended up skipping Feb’s update since I didn’t have anything really to update. I’ve also been really busy with my kids’ school and after school activities, so I’ve stepped back into being a part-time writer instead of full-time. On the plus side, I did accomplish enough to give a March update so hurray for that!
For my 2023 goals, nothing much has changed although Jane and Gray’s covers and paperbacks are firmly on the back-burner. At this point, I feel like it’s become a running gag that I’m getting them out, because I can’t seem to find the inspiration and time to sit down and get those covers done! I am still planning on releasing my adult paranormal romances Soul Enchanter and Soul Keeper this year with tentative target months of June and Sept, respectively! I might push up the third book in the Soul Enchanter’s series on my WiP list depending on how well the first two do, but right now the third book is slated for 2026. In my young adult Anderson Grimm Academy of Elites series, I’m still hoping to have Liz’s duet, Rose’s novella, and Devil’s novella mostly written by the end of year so that I’ll be in a good spot for next year’s releases.
For my current WiPs, I’m so incredibly excited for Soul Enchanter and Soul Keeper to be released this year! Soul Enchanter has been over a decade in the making, which makes it extra special to me. Soul Keeper is officially my favorite book that I’ve ever written and has a female lead that I had a blast writing. Expect teasers and a cover reveal as we get closer to launch day in hopefully June! Liz and Ryken’s duet is over half done, but I’m still struggling with how to handle so much overlap between Jane and Gray’s story and Liz’s book 1. The second half has been much easier to write, since I don’t have to keep going back to make sure timelines and dialogues are consistent. I haven’t done much for Rose and Blue, but their story is outlined and should be straightforward to write with only a little bit of overlap with Jane and Liz’s duets.
There you have it! April will be busy super busy with PTA activities, spring break, and the start of softball season, so we’ll see what I have to report with my April wrap-up!
Happy New Year! Thanksgiving to New Years was super busy in our household, and I loved it! I love celebrating the holidays, and Christmas is my favorite holiday by far! The kids also had school off, so we spent time hanging out together cleaning/organizing the house, watching new TV series, and playing board and video games while getting over colds. We had snow fall the week before Christmas, but we had to limit our fun to looking at the gorgeous snowscape from inside our house since we had coughs running through our house.
Onto my December writing recap: nothing new. I couldn’t focus on writing with all our December household activities, so no new updates with writing aside from making the decision to change my Demon Souls series POV from third person to first person. I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to update that so I’m going to push back those releases. I’ve also learned that there really is so much I can do, so I need to simplify my goals even further. I’m hoping that taking a month off means I’ll be refreshed with writing, so here’s to my 2023 writing goals!
My publishing goals for 2023 are the same as what I posted in my November wrap up. I want to update Jane and Gray’s covers and release the paperbacks and have a summer/fall ebook release for the first two books in my Demon Souls series. I’m adding a few non-publishing goals for 2023, too. I’d like to have a complete first draft for Liz’s first book and have close to completed first drafts for Liz’s second book, Rose’s novella, Devil’s novella, and Rage’s spinoff. Those are pretty big goals so we’ll see what happens! If I can do that, then I’ll be in really good shape for 2024!
That’s it for now! Happy New Year and see you in the January wrap up post!
Happy Halloween! I love the idea of a supernatural world, as you can tell with my paranormal and fantasy stories! This is one of my favorite times of the year, and the kids and I had so much fun painting and carving pumpkins and decorating cookies over the weekend! It’s supposed to rain tonight, but I’m hoping we can still get some trick-or-treating in before we get totally soaked!
Alright, so on to my monthly writing update! Well, I’m still officially a full-time writer, and I still have no idea what I’m doing! I’m still working on trying to find a balance between being a writer, organizing the house, and being a stay-at-home mom to two elementary-aged kids. I’ve had to ease up some more on writing expectations for myself, since a birthday celebration vacation, kids’ extracurricular activities, and a bad cough/cold running through our household ate into my writing time. I still managed to make my average daily word count goal with 1075 words/day, so I’m happy with that!
I also had to update my writing goals for the rest of 2022. I’m torn whether to update my Howls in the Moonlight book or completely unpublish and rewrite it and follow up with a rapid release of the entire trilogy. I’m also stuck what to do with my Soul Keeper trilogy, since my muse is still being stubborn about writing book 1 and flittering about when it comes to figuring out an outline with book 3. Hopefully by the end of 2022, I can figure out which trilogy to focus on for a 2023 release. I still am hoping for paperbacks and updated covers for the first two books in my Andersen Grimm Academy of Elites series, but since that totally depends on my photoshop skills, it’s slow-going!
As for what I’ve been actively working on this month, I’ve got Soul Keeper with my Beta reader! I’m now ~70k words in Liz and Ryken’s duet with ~46k of those in the first book, Dud Discovered. Rose and Blue have ~3k words in their novella. Originally, I was going to have one of their scenes in Liz and Ryken’s duet, but since it might be too much of a cliff-hanger instead of a hook, I decided to shift it to their novella. Depending on where my muse wants to take me, I might actually have Liz and Ryken’s duet out next year instead of 2024, but we’ll see how it goes! I’ve found that I’m overly optimistic with my writing schedule and then have to adjust accordingly! Even though I want to believe I can write and publish four books a year, I think I should be more realistic and first work up to publishing two a year.
That’s it for my October wrap up! Happy Halloween and have a wonderful November!
It’s official: I’m a full-time writer now, and I have no idea what I’m doing!
But that’s okay, because I’m slowly figuring it out! September marks what I consider my first full month of being a full-time writer since my kids are back in school, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to manage my time with writing and trying to get our house in order after two plus years of being hidden away during the pandemic. Over the summer, I tried social media for promotion and writing a minimum of 1000 words per day. The result? I basically started September frustrated and burnt out!
So, I decided that September I’d set up more reasonable goals. Instead of getting frustrated when I couldn’t write 1000 words, I decided to keep track of my daily word count and aim for a monthly average of 1000 words! I decided to drop social media and maybe pick those up again once I have more books out. If you’re looking for updates, you can find them here on my blog or through my Facebook Page. I’m not planning on releasing any other books in 2022 and instead focus on polishing up the books I already have published before putting out new books.
My current main goal for 2022 is to polish up my Howls in the Moonlight book. This was the first book I ever published, and even though I absolutely love it, it’s almost a totally different writing style from what I have now. I’m working on removing head-hopping and adding a bit more steam, so we’ll see how that goes! Once I’m done reworking Howls, I’m going to rework my Prince of Shadows book so it’s more inline with my current writing style. I’m also working on redoing the covers for Jane and Gray’s duet so they look more like current YA Academy book covers and then hopefully get some paperbacks released for them.
I currently have ten books fighting for attention in my mind, so it’s been hard trying to figure out what to work on next! I’ve spent September focused on writing four books. I’m totally in love with my new PNR slow burn, spicy Soul Keeper book, which features demons, druids, and a feisty human. This was actually the second book in a series I had planned out, but I had lost the draft for the first book so this series went on the back burner. While I was anxiously awaiting the launch for Wolf Claimed, I worked on Soul Keeper as a totally different palate cleanser. I’m hoping to release Soul Keeper next year with the other two books in the trilogy, but first I have to convince my muse to rewrite the first book.
As for the other three books? Those would be the next three books in my YA slow burn, sweet Andersen Grimm Academy of Elites series! I’m having trouble with this one since Liz’s first book takes place during the same period as Jane and Gray’s duet as a companion novel. So, if you’ve read Jane and Gray’s book, you already know the main surprises for Liz. The tricky part: how do I still make this exciting for my readers? Liz’s second book picks up where Jane and Gray’s duet ends, so that will be totally new. I have about 40k words done for Liz and Ryken’s duet in total with a target of 160k words split between the two books. Rose and Blue’s novella follows next, and I have about 2k words to get that novella off the ground! My plan is to get those three books and Rage’s book (which will be written under Ellie Parin since that’ll be an adult PNR spinoff) in 2024.
Ellie Parin & L.E. Parin 