The digital revolution, as we all know, has taken the publishing world by storm. Last year 350,000 new e-books were released with nearly 200,000 of them from self published authors. This revolution has given both established authors and those struggling to find a niche, opportunities and freedoms they never had before.
As one of those struggling authors who doesn’t fit comfortably in a conventional box, I am always trying to innovate. I also hold a strong belief in playing to my strengths. So, after reading so many reviews and hearing numerous readers remark how vivid the stories in my DeVere series are, particularly the romantic comedies (A Wild Night’s Bride and The Virgin Huntress), I began to ponder ways in which I might be able to enhance reader enjoyment. Upon seeing the new generation of full color, graphics-capable e-readers, it came upon me to make something old new again – by offering color illustrations!
Although illustrations in books are nothing new, they are rarely found in the romance world, being largely the realm of hardcover children’s and coffee table books. Yet, I perceive an opportunity to change that. Call me crazy if you will, but I prefer to think of it as blazing a trail into the digital wilderness!
My experiment with digital artwork has just launched with Devil In The Making, the first title in a series of short Devilish Vignettes that is a complement to my award winning Devil DeVere historical romance series, recently chosen by LIBRARY JOURNAL as one of the Five best E-book romances of 2012. Rather than a romance, this is a comic romp in the tradition of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones. While highly entertaining, it also serves two greater purposes- to provide added back story on the pivotal character of my series (Ludovic ”the Devil” DeVere), and to introduce a number of new characters who will be featured in future books as I expand the DeVere series.
Concurrent with this endeavor, I have launched a dedicated Devil DeVere Fan Site, where I will highlight the various characters by revealing a beautiful digitally rendered portrait and personality profile each month, along with favorite quotes, scene snippets, and sneak peeks, and special giveaways.
This site will also provide fans the opportunity to interact through a Q&A with their favorite characters. This is a long term work in progress as there are already over 20 characters (primary and secondary) who will be featured on the site, but I hope it will intrigue readers enough to visit often!
Now without further ado, here’s a sneak peek of Devil in the Making, The Illustrated Edition!.
Devil in the Making (Devilish Vignette #1)
PRIMARY PLAYERS
Ludovic, young Lord DeVere
Edward Chambers, Esquire
Simon Singleton, Esquire
EXCERPT
Westminster School- 1764
“The epic poets of ancient times composed histories of Greek heroes in rhyming verse, chanted by the Rhapsodes in accompaniment by the cithara. The meter employed was dactylic hexameter…” Dr. Trasker’s droning monotone faded to the far periphery of Simon’s consciousness as he reviewed the first lines of his own poetic composition, An Ode to a Milkmaid of St. James Park.
Lovely Lavinia, a comely lass,
With ripe pink teats and plump white arse,
Ha’penny paid will fill your cup
He thoughtfully chewed the nub of his quill.
But for a shilling, she’d liefer tup…
He flourished the last line with a self-satisfied smirk.
“Master Singleton.” The stentorian voice halted the rhythmic scratch of Simon’s quill.
Simon looked up blankly.
“I await your response,” the schoolmaster intoned.
“Homer and Hesiod,” Ned coughed from behind.
“Master Chambers!” The schoolmaster’s rebuke turned upon the second offender.
“Sir?” Ned answered.
“Since you are so desirous to impart your scholarship, you shall now stand and enlighten the class on the Elegiac couplet.”
“The Elegiac couplet?” Ned repeated.
“Now, Master Chambers,” the taskmaster commanded.
Ned stood, his ears reddening with the snickers of his classmates.
“You seem unprepared, Chambers,” the pedagogue accused.
“N-no, sir. Indeed not. I only wish to understand. Is it the meter for elegy, or the couplet itself that you wish me to explain?”
“You are stalling.”
“Beware, Ned,” DeVere whispered from across the aisle, “lest you inspire him to invoke the holy name of the birch. The goddess of discipline. The handmaiden of higher learning.”
Ned cleared his throat to disguise a choke of laughter and then recited, “The Elegiac meter is customarily described as a dactylic hexameter followed by a dactylic pentameter, which together form an Elegiac couplet.”
Trasker’s beady eyes narrowed. “That is correct, Master Chambers. Now then, let us hope your benighted classmates have been equally attentive.” With visible disappointment the pedagogue took up his notes to resume his lecture.
Perceiving his chance to share his bawdy masterpiece, Simon reached across the aisle to DeVere— just as Trasker’s bespectacled gaze rose from his notes. Simultaneously, Simon and DeVere snatched back their hands, leaving the lone sheet of parchment to drift slowly to the floor with the quiet grace of an autumn leaf.
“What is this?” Trasker snapped, advancing upon them with a militant look.
“Bugger!” Simon muttered.
The sixth form collectively inhaled as Trasker retrieved the fallen parchment and scanned the brief lines. He then transfixed a sulfurous stare back upon his first victim, demanding, “Master Singleton? Are you the author of this lewd and scurrilous verse?”
Simon closed his eyes with a gulp, knowing full well what would follow his confession. He drew courage and then drew breath but another spoke before he opened his mouth.
“Mea culpa,” DeVere volunteered.
Trasker spun toward DeVere, his gaze narrowed to a slit. “You, my lord?” An evil smile thinned his lips. It was no secret that Trasker, who had advanced to his position by scholarly merit alone, despised the rich and indolent— and none more than the impudent heir to a viscountcy, Ludovic DeVere.
This could not be good. (END EXCERPT)
DEVIL IN THE MAKING by Victoria Vane
Every devil has a beginning…
A rebellious young nobleman’s prank with the king’s lion goes comically awry, leading to a startling chain of events.
A riotous Georgian romp in the tradition of Fielding’s Tom Jones and a prequel to the Devil DeVere series.
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Related articles
- THE DEVIL DEVERE Series by Victoria Vane (thedevildevere.wordpress.com)
- The Devil DeVere Series Makes Library Journal Best of 2012 List! (victoriavane.wordpress.com)
- Exciting New Release Updates! (victoriavane.wordpress.com)
- by Victoria Vane (thedevildevere.com)
- Excerpt- a Wild Night’s Bride (trsparties.com)
In a year where two ebook romances won the Romance Writers of America RITA Awards in head-to-head (maybe that should be heart-to-heart) competition against print titles, 2012 was an even better year for ebook romance. And with more to choose, there are even more to love. Choosing five, or even five-ish, wasn’t easy. Full disclosure: Ruhie Knox’s About Last Night is my fave!
A world war in the years just before we fought ours but different. This world war uses a metal called telumium and a fuel made from soya called tetrol, but, oddly enough, some of the same players appear. So typical of steampunk—familiar, yet not. Airships but also air-bikes, air-trikes, and air-horses, oh, my! And something that’s unique to this steampunk world, the Man O’War, which is a cyborg controlling an airship and seemingly vice versa. Still, with a world war come spies and secret ops and all the romantic suspense possibilities. There are also all the options for world-spanning action: military operations in Europe, town-killers, ether-powered cowboys in the U.S. West, and rogues bringing “modern” technology to the Middle Eastern tribes. Indiana Jones has nothing on them. (Skies of Fire, Xpress Review, 3/30/12; Skies of Steel, Xpress Reviews, 10/19/12
The Mine is one of those stories that sneaks up on you and sweeps you off your feet. It reminds me a lot of Jack Finney’s classic Time and Again, in its sense of a man falling in love not just with a woman but also with a time, a place, and a way of life. Joel Smith starts the story as a cocky boy/man on a last adventure before college graduation. He bumps his head in an abandoned mine and wakes up in 1941, in America’s last golden summer before Pearl Harbor. He’s afraid to change things, but he has to find a way to survive in a world he only knows from history books and baseball statistics. Thinking he can’t go back, he falls in love and makes a life. Then he discovers that he can return to the present and is faced with a terrible dilemma. He can leave behind all that he has come to love, or stay, knowing that if he does, he may change history. This one haunts.
About Last Night was my starred review in LJ’s Xpress Reviews way back in April, and I never forgot it. Knox’s contemporary romance is a funny and charming (also gloriously hot) tale about a bad girl trying to be good and a good man who needs to let his bad side out to play a little more often than his straight-laced upper-crust family can tolerate. Cath, the good-bad girl, also has one of those dream jobs—assistant to a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Knox had me at “hand-knitted straitjacket.” Her terrific “sex into love” romance will make readers laugh out loud. And finish in one sitting. (Xpress Reviews, 4/20/12)
Pape’s “Gaslight Chronicles”series (Steam & Sorcery; Photographs & Phantoms; Kilts & Kraken) is set in a steampunk world that deviates from ours at two key points: Charles Babbage’s difference engine was built (and worked!), and the Knights of the Round Table were not only real, but their descendants are still defending the monarchy and, by extension, the realm, in this alternate Victorian England. In Moonlight & Mechanicals, we have possibly the ultimate steampunk romance, between a werewolf police detective and a female engineer who grew up fighting vampires. The detective is, of course, a member of the Knights. And the heroine has had a crush on him ever since he saved her life. He just believes that he isn’t capable of being a family man. She’s just planning to tinker with him until she proves different. And they save the Queen! (Xpress Reviews, 11/12/12)
The “Devil DeVere” series is a variation on the rake’s progress, or the rake’s reformation, except that is doesn’t start with said rake as the main character—a device that is amazingly clever on Vane’s part and allows her to circle in on DeVere without revealing too much at the outset. In the first two books (Wild and Virgin), DeVere is the puppet master, rearranging his friends’ lives. But in the background, readers catch hints that there’s more to him than the debauched reprobate they see. By the time we find out his story, we’re invested. The series is erotic and sexy, and sometimes you want to shake the characters until their teeth rattle, but it is absolutely marvelous. This one should be read with bonbons. And a fan!
