Author News – Page 5 – Jessie Mihalik

Virtual Events!

May 21, 2020 / Author News, Chaos Reigning, Events, Writing

Here is a list of my current and upcoming virtual events! So many exciting things! 😍

Chat with Bree & Donna – Friday, May 22 @ 7PM CDT (that’s tomorrow!!)

Kit Rocha also known as Bree & Donna, hanging with Jessie Mihalik, Friday May 22, 7PM CST

Bree and Donna (aka Kit Rocha) were kind enough to invite me to hang out with them this week to celebrate the launch of Chaos Reigning. The chat will be live-streamed on YouTube tomorrow night and the chat will be active so you can come ask questions! We’ll talk about CR, writing, their upcoming book (which is SO GOOD), and maybe my new series.

If you head over to YouTube, you can set a reminder so you don’t get busy and forget. :)

Two interviews with Jeffe Kennedy!

Jeffe and I were supposed to have an event at The Ripped Bodice next week to celebrate the release of CR and The Fiery Crown (which I’m so looking forward to!), but because of everything the event was canceled. :(

The Ripped Bodice presents A Book Conversation with Jeffe Kennedy & Jessie Mihalik

So instead of an in-person event, we did a virtual video event hosted by our mutual agent, Ms. Sarah! It’s available on The Ripped Bodice’s Instagram! And you can watch it in your browser if you don’t have an Instagram account. :)

Jeffe was also kind enough to have me on her First Cup of Coffee podcast last Friday, and she asked the best questions! If you want to know how I came up with the idea for PR (and how much it changed from that original idea) or how I accidentally conference stalked my agent prior to signing with her, it’s all in here!

And finally, I’m doing a virtual event with Alyssa Cole and Nalini Singh on June 12 at 6PM EDT for Loyalty Bookstores.

Date Night w/ Alyssa Cole, Nalini Singh, and Jessie Mihalik. A new series featuring faves from Romancelandia chatting books, snacks, lure, and whatever else they feel like! Friday 6/12/2020 @ 6PM. loyaltybookstores.com/datenight4

You all, Alyssa and Nalini are two of my favorite authors, and I might have made incomprehensible squeeing noises when Alyssa asked me to join them. 😂

You need a ticket to attend, but it’s free to sign up.

Chaos Reigning is Here!!

May 19, 2020 / Author News, Chaos Reigning, Writing

Chaos Reigning Available Now! The final book in the Consortium Rebellion Trilogy!

Your patience has been rewarded! Chaos Reigning is officially out in the world. 🎉🎉🎉

CHAOS REIGNING cover. A woman with dark, curly hair, in a long leather coat, facing left and holding a blaster. The background is an alien landscape with a planet and two moons in the sky and everything is shaded green-blue.

Interplanetary intrigue and romance combine in this electrifying finale to the Consortium Rebellion trilogy.

As the youngest member of her High House, Catarina von Hasenberg is used to being underestimated, but her youth and flighty, bubbly personality mask a clever mind and stubborn determination. Her enemies, blind to her true strength, do not suspect that Cat is a spy—which makes her the perfect candidate to go undercover at a rival House’s summer retreat to gather intelligence on their recent treachery.

Cat’s overprotective older sister reluctantly agrees, but on one condition: Cat cannot go alone. Alexander Sterling, a quiet, gorgeous bodyguard, will accompany her, posing as her lover. After Cat tries, and fails, to ditch Alex, she grudgingly agrees, confident in her ability to manage him. After all, she’s never found a person she can’t manipulate.

But Alex proves more difficult—and more desirable—than Cat anticipated. When she’s attacked and nearly killed, she and Alex are forced to work together to figure out how deep the treason goes. With rumors of widespread assaults on Serenity raging, communications down, and the rest of her family trapped off-planet, Catarina must persuade Alex to return to Earth to expose the truth and finish this deadly battle once and for all.

But Cat can’t explain why she’s the perfect person to infiltrate hostile territory without revealing secrets she’d rather keep buried…

Read the first three chapters!

It’s a little weird to release a book right now, especially one called Chaos Reigning. It’s a little too on the nose for what’s happening in the world, but my Chaos is filled with hope and happiness and a HEA, and I hope it gives you a nice vacation from the real world for a little bit.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me for my debut trilogy! It’s because of your support that I get to work on a new series and keep doing this job that I love. Pitching something new can be a fraught thing in publishing, and I am incredibly lucky to be able to keep going—all thanks to you, my readers!

I hope you enjoy the conclusion to the Consortium Rebellion arc. I do have more stories I’d like to tell in this universe, but we’ll have to see what happens in the future. :) Next up, I’m still working on TQT and also the first book in the new series, which is set in a new universe.

But today I’m celebrating. :)

Exciting News!

February 14, 2020 / Author News, Books, Writing

I know it’s been radio silence around here, but that’s because I was working on something SUPER SECRET, and today the secret is out!

Behold!

Author of Polaris Rising, Jessie Mihalik's HUNTED pitched as a gender-switched MANDALORIAN but with romance, featuring a fierce intergalactic bounty hunter, her motley crew, and a grim former foe who's hiding more than a few secrets to Tessa Woodward at Voyager, in a good deal, in a three-book deal, for publication in January 2022, by Sarah Younger at the Nancy Yost Literary Agency (world).

If you don’t know what you’re looking at, this is the Publisher’s Marketplace (the book industry’s deal news source) screenshot of MY NEW BOOK DEAL!!! 🎉🎉🎉

Tessa Woodward, my absolutely amazing editor at Harper Voyager, has agreed to do three more books with me! I am delighted that I get to continue working with her and the team at Voyager because as far as I’m concerned, they’re the best in the business. :)

This will be a completely new series, set in a new world, but it’s still science fiction romance. What follows is VERY EARLY info, so it’s subject to change.

The first book, tentatively titled HUNTED, will follow Octavia Zarola, a tough bounty-hunter hiding a soft heart, and her sworn enemy, Torran Fletcher. It’ll be a true enemies-to-lovers, with a few other surprises thrown in. I’ve written a little bit of it to get a feel for the world/characters, and it’s going to be so fun! I love Tavi’s crew, who’ll feature in the second and third books.

I’m usually not a plotter (at all), but when you’re making a proposal for a new series, the publisher wants more than “uhhh… it’s a space romance,” so I know more than usual about these characters already.

Do you want a tiny, tiny peek? Shhh, don’t tell anyone. ;)

Rough draft, unedited, subject to completely change! This is their first meeting. I’ve removed a few spoilery things (I have to keep some secrets), but they’re in a space station landing bay and Octavia is leaning against her ship’s cargo ramp, watching as Torran’s group goes around and talks to various other ship captains.

The group leader raised an eyebrow. He was all hard angles and harsh beauty. Sharp cheekbones, strong jaw, straight nose.

Behind him waited three soldiers, all in full armor—including the battle helmets that covered their faces. I couldn’t tell if they expected trouble to find them or if they were prepared to be the trouble.

“Are you the captain of this ship?” the leader asked in lightly-accented Common.

I straightened away from the ramp. I wasn’t particularly tall, and I had to look up to meet his eyes, which added an annoyed bite to my tone. “Yes.”

“I am Torran Fletcher. I want to hire you.”

Now I understood why all of his previous conversations were so short. This one would be, too. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m a bounty hunter. I hunt criminals and murderers; I don’t work for them.” And I especially didn’t work for one of the top Valovian generals who’d led the war against the Federated Human Planets. No wonder he’d looked familiar. He’d been one of our priority targets, but as far as we knew, he’d never been anywhere near the front lines. Disgust pulled at my lips. Coward.

His piercing gaze seared me. “I know you. Lieutenant Octavia Zarola, hero of Rodeni,” he mocked before his expression hardened. “Slaughterer of thousands. You are worth a lot in Valovian space.”

My palms itched with the desire to grip a weapon. The enemy stood at my door and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it unless I wanted to cause an intergalactic incident. Which I did, very much. But the thought of my crew stayed my hand. I couldn’t go and get myself killed for a vengeance that was three years too late, not when people still depended on me.

Ooohhh… drama. LOL. I hope you enjoyed the tiny snippet. :) Happy Valentine’s Day!

The Next Rogue Queen Serial is Delayed :(

December 13, 2019 / Author News, Writing

Let’s rip this bandaid off fast: the next Rogue Queen serial is going to be delayed by a month or so. I was hoping to start it by the end of the year, but edits for Chaos Reigning just landed. And while my editor liked the story overall (yay! always a relief), it needs a few fairly big edits and not a lot of time to complete them.

All of the house stuff and moving has put me super behind schedule. Usually, at this point in December, I’d have about 5-10k of the serial written already, because I need to be a little ahead of what is posted due to my writing style (aka go back and change earlier things as I write).

Let’s just say that I am nowhere near that mark. :(

That means if I started posting around Christmas as I planned, the updates would be short, sporadic, and lower quality than I would like. So, delayed it is. I’m so sorry. I know a lot of you are looking forward to the third book—it’s one of the things people email me about the most.

Edits are due mid-January, so depending on how they go, the serial will hopefully start late January.

As a small consolation, and to give you something to look forward to, book three has a title: The Queen’s Triumph. And here’s a peek at Samara:

For those of you who wait for the published ebook, this shouldn’t affect that schedule. Right now, it is tentatively scheduled for late summer.

I won’t be around too much while editing, so I hope you all have a great holiday season! See you in 2020!

(Also, where did this year go? If anyone sees my missing months lying around, please return them.)

Incredible Book Bundle for a Good Cause!

December 5, 2019 / Author News, Books

23 Authors. 42 Books. Pay what you can for a good cause.

As some of you may know, I’ve become friends with Bree and Donna (the duo behind Kit Rocha). They’ve been incredibly kind and generous as I learn to navigate this wild world of being an author.

This week, Donna got some bad news and needs emergency surgery, which is awful anytime, but especially awful during the holidays. In order to help defray the costs, Bree put together an INCREDIBLE pay-what-you-can book bundle.

42 Books.

23 Authors.

Starting at just $10.

If you can only give $10, you’re helping out and getting an amazing deal. If you can give more, you’re STILL getting an amazing deal, and you’re helping Donna tell her left boob to fuck off (really). Just don’t wait too long, because this is a limited-time offer.

Some of my very favorite authors are included in this bundle and I’m so happy I could be a tiny part of it. I mean, just look at this list!!

The Queen’s Gambit is included, so if you’ve been meaning to pick it up, now you can get it and 41 other awesome books for one ridiculous price. The hardest part for me is going to be deciding which book to read first.

Thank you for helping out, and please share!