Supernatural hybrids. The wrath of the Devil. Can three chosen by God win the war against darkness?
 
Reign knows he was never supposed to exist. The impossible fusion of a vampire and a spirit wolf, the powerful shifter’s life is a divine miracle. But when the city of Florence is robbed of its memories, Reign stands between the innocent Italians and a hellish demise.
 
Teaming up with his bonded packmate and a young wizard, Reign storms the Tuscan capital to bring down the possessed mob leader. And with the Heavenly battle raging against Satanic gangsters, the God-chosen crossbreed must risk his own inconceivable life to annihilate the forces of evil.  

The above blurb is for Carol McKibben's latest novel REIGN: The Assault of Lucifer Morningstar. And as usual, her fans got to choose the cover of the latest spin-off series titled The Silver Blood Knight. 

​Those in the know stood up and were counted! They voted! And your votes mattered! Because the cover YOU chose was not the in-house #1 favorite. In fact, we thought the subtly of the winner might be lost in translation. But it wasn't and now, we have a cover!

If you didn't get a chance to vote you can get on Carol McKibben's V.I.R. (Very Important Reader) list and be the first to know about exciting events like this!

She's a nice lady and you'll get weekly freebies while you're on this list!
Carol takes good care of her fans. 
Which means, she won't sell your email or name to anyone.

Here is a fan-made 40 second snippet of REIGN: The Assault of Lucifer Morningstar ​that I made in honor of the new release! 

Sometimes, things go wrong. Very wrong. So wrong that you have to discard the original. Carol's tried and true fans are going to look at this cover reveal and say... hey wait a minute, that's not quite the cover I voted for!

They'd be right. 

See, after the voting commenced, the winner was awarded the prize, contracts were signed, money paid and files downloaded, we had a gorgeous cover!

The male model on the cover was almost perfect! The design itself was amazing. It was unusual. It was the new look and feel of the latest series.

Then 99Designs came back and said... 

Hold up! We have a problem. 

See, our designer used a photo of a person in which the fine print stated that human models had to be unrecognizable if they were to be used for commercial purposes. Umm... I guess the consensus at 99Designs was of the mind that the model was too recognizable.

Whoops! Whoopsie!

But we'd seen what this designer could do. Andrei Bat is amazing. He made the cover better than ever! 

Let's get this show on the road! I present to you the video that unveils the winning cover! With the modifications, of course! Just click play and watch the 12 second reveal!

Get your pre-order at these locations: 

There it is in all it's beauty!

So clean.

So sharp.

So very awesome! 

​Thank you all who voted and participated in our poll! You chose an amazing cover! 

2020 has been bad for everyone. Don't look at me though, my name isn't everyone. Everyone ELSE though seems to having a hard time with 2020 when it's been one of the best years for me personally.

Now, I'm not denying things are weird, but, it's as if my whole life has prepared me for this particular year. 

Neither am I denying the 2020 phenomenon. People have died. People have fallen on hard times. People have fallen apart. Things have gone crazy. 

But, people have been born. People have risen far beyond themselves because of these hard times. People have picked the pieces back up and become stronger. And things go crazy in cycles. Live long enough and you'll see them too.  

I say that because preppers prep for everything. Including the zombie apocalypse. Which is just another way of saying we're prepared for the government to go to shit and attack us for our resources. Or to make an example of preppers for their independence. Or raid us for a lack of foresight much like The Ants and the Grasshopper story.

But since I'm also of the mind that everyone has a value, I would let the Grasshopper in that story inside and make him dance and sing and play music for his winter dinner. It would be a perfect trade. Entertainment for food. The Grasshopper does what entertainers do best and Ants do what preppers do best. I actually don't see the problem with that scenario. Unless you hold resentment for what you do. Then that sounds like a problem with responsibility.

How did this become a life lesson in following your dreams? 

​But in actuality, that's how 2020 is the best year I've had since 2019.

​We prepared for a goal in mind. One we'd been working towards for 10 years. That goal? Move out of California. 

California is fun, the weather is excellent. The bugs are virtually non-existent. But the culture is indifferent. The cities aren't inclusive, they're anonymous. No matter how many different eateries showcase the blending of cultures, California doesn't claim any one of them. People have their niche and because the city doesn't care much, you can carve your own special place out. But don't mistake anonymity for acceptance. 

One can be swallowed into the crowd. 

Cities are the places where people go for their fortune or to hide. Sometimes both. They're called actors. These people went to the cities because they were unable to comply with their previous social circle and/or wanted "more" from life.

Or at least this is what any Hollywood writer would have you believe. 

My mom likes to tell the story of how when I was a child (groan...) I wasn't a babbler. I'd sleep in and when I awoke, I'd giggle and bounce in my crib waiting for someone to come pick me up. Born optimist if there ever were.

Trying to tell you to be positive is like a piano progeny of five teaching you how to compose music. Or that kid that wins the race the first time they ever donned their shoes on the track. 

It's boring. 

It's degrading. 

JUST BE POSITIVE! 

Barf. 

First, being positive, isn't being happy. Those are two freaking different things. So don't think walking around with a forced smile on your face is going to help. Okay, there is something to changing your mood by fake it till you make it. But being positive has a certain element of being prepared. 

Hence my prepper story. 

See what I did there? I totally had you thinking one did not equal the other... admit it!

You thought I was just rambling, didn't ya! 

Ha!

Squirrel!

Anyway...

The power of positivity also has to do with being observant. 

If you think the MEME below is funny in more ways than one than you too are one of the optimists!  

Why?

Because you can foresee the coming incident at the picture on top and cackle at being shown right from the picture on the bottom.  

​Why is optimism foresight? Because when you foresee, you can expect. When you expect you can prepare your reaction.

There one more ingredient to optimism though. 

If I've learned one thing, there's just really one thing you need. 

Hope is Optimism. 

So you might be wondering what this all has to do with staying positive in hard times. 

Hope, observation, and being prepared gives you the power of choice. 

Simple, right?

What if you still don't get it. That's okay. Let's expand. 

Hope, observation and being prepared gives you the power of choice on which scenario you're going to choose. If your natural inclination is to give up after watching that progeny play the piano better than you ever will, it means your hope meter is low. But cognizant reason helps you play devil's advocate. Cognizant reason is the part of your that says, I think I'll stay in on November 3rd this coming 2020. 

Sure, the piano progeny will always be better. So what's the opposite of that thought?  

The opposite is a conversation that looks like: Wait a minute, this kid is a gift. This kid is a mentor. This kid could take me further than any other piano teacher. 

Optimism is just looking at something with hope. And if you're observant and prepare to meet the circumstance of a situation, even better. 

I'm just being a realist. 

Awesome! So basically your telling me you have observation to prepare but have no hope. 

Here's where the realist points out:

• RBG
• Riots
• Covid pandemic

"How can you find optimism in all this?"

My answer: Did I mention anywhere in this article that optimism was easy?

No. I said use your cognizant reason. Play devil's advocate. Be prepared. Choose not to see things happening as a worst case scenario. Hope is a choice. That choice is given to you by cognitive reason. And observation will help you flip the story around to see it through hope's eyes.   

Using cognizant reason is very hard to do when you react to everything. And I mean react as in people don't react when they are proactive.  

Let me point out:

• RBG was suffering from cancer. Cancer sucks. Cancer takes loved ones away. We knew she had cancer. This was no surprise. But she's not the only person fighting for what they believe is the course a nation should go. There are others who have their own ideas on how to serve. 
• Riots happen about every 20 years. It's history. Again, preppers prepare. Destruction is beautiful. Creation is beautiful. They are two sides of the same coin. Tearing down allows a building back up better than ever. Those who had businesses torn down within the blink of an eye, I've been where you are. It's not the products you sell, your worth is within what you have in your mind. 
• Covid pandemic. Certainly no preppers anywhere saw this coming. How long has China been fucking with viruses? How long has every nation everywhere been fucking with shit they don't understand? Hint: Long before the H bomb cupcake. Why are you surprised that the same nation that brought us the first cloned sheep isn't fucking with other weird shit? Why do you think a nation that has population control wouldn't do this? Do you think there would be no consequences after Donny closed the borders? Here's a hint. Open a history book. Read between the lines. Answers come from history. No matter what precedence. It's not like there's never been precedence's before.  

Optimism isn't being dumb. Optimism doesn't have anything to do with being happy. Optimism doesn't have to be beyond reality.

Covid had an impact on me. It helped my freelancing business and thus, I had more work than ever. There are people who died. I hope they had the care and compassion everyone deserves during such times. But I refuse to treat everyone like they have the plague. Humanity will always have hunters like Covid. We will fight this virus like we have for millennia. With our immune system. Break out the vitamins!

Preparing myself to be out of a job helped me become a freelancer. 
Becoming a freelancer helps me write. 
Writing gives me expression. 
My expression is the way I see things.
So the way I see things is usually hopeful. Thus the optimism. 

Optimism is fed from somewhere. It's like the circle of life. Happiness feeds hope. Hope feeds optimism. Optimism feeds dreams. Dreams feeds goals. Goals feed fulfilment. Fulfilment feeds happiness. 

You can jump in anywhere in that circle to get started. ​

Being a 3rd generation writer means a family of beta readers! (For good or ill) 😊

Or… collaborators! Whichever way one chooses to see it.

What does that have to do with a genre change? What makes a writer change genre?

There are risks to changing genre and I'm well aware of that. And, I know it might seem a bit counterintuitive but I have thought about what to do for a while now because my genre changes is as diverse as writing erotica and then writing children's stories. At least in most people's minds. 

So, let me tell you a story...

It's hard keeping up with one pen name. Adding another seemed like so much work. But here's a novel idea (he-he... see what I did there? Novel?) I could share the responsibility of a pen name with another author. That way, I could stick to one genre per pen name.

It's my hot pen name, I can do what I want.

The lure or trying something new, something different, tasted sweet. But I also, wanted to have my mom involved. See, she's a writer too. Hence the whole 3rd generation comment...

But there were other things involved with my picking one genre and sticking to it. You'll see why. Give me a moment.

​​The truth really is that I’ve been struggling with what genre to focus on like a squirrel with a… oh shiny!

Yeah. Kinna like that.
​
But I got into reading M/M romance. It’s not where I started and there was a long road between here and there. Interests changed and grew. I found the M/M genre more and more intriguing. And as I read M/M romance, I found more interest in writing in the genre. But this does not mean that I want to leave the wonderful M/F romance stories behind. I simply was at odds at doing both under the same pen name. The reason should be obvious, but if it isn't the simple rule is... not many straight people are interested in gay fiction. So how do I fix this? How do I let readers know this is M/F and this other book is M/M. That's a tricky one. 

Enter the idea of working with my mom, Carol McKibben.

It was after we decided to collaborate and create a new pen name that made me go… oh, I can totally do m/m romance as S.N.McKibben and Unexpected Paranormal Romance as the other pen name!

Because, as I said, my mom is one of those straight people that's not all that interested in reading M/M romance, we'll be doing M/F. 

What's the other pen name so you can go over there and check it out? I so glad you asked!
​
We decided to call ourselves Penn Scripter.

Because… pen… and writing… and because nom deplume was already taken. Yes, we did seriously consider first name Nom, last name DePlume, but I also convinced mom Penn Scripter was the name!

So before ya'll are thinking, Why are you doing this to me? ... Consider it not as losing a writer to another genre, think of it as getting two phenomenal writers for the price of one!​