Lime Craven's Blog

...Does this line belong to Aeron, or to Blood Honey, the new psycho on the block? ;)

...right he-yuh.

This one's all from Leo's POV. Enjoy.

http://www.limecravenauthor.com/#!SOC...

From Friday to Sunday, Mr Aeron Lore will be festively reduced* to $0.99. Grab him before the sequel hits ;)




*My god, he would hate me for saying it like that.

So. Nearly two weeks ago, I released a book. It was my first attempt at a thriller (and ended up being a bit of a mongrel, but I'm okay with that). I expected it to float somewhere under the radar, if I'm honest. Maybe I'd get a few decent reviews; maybe I'd get some okay sales.



I'll start at the beginning.

I'd been trying to write a dangerous-but-loving alpha type for a while, but I could never take my efforts seriously because I was all, no--he's wrong. He's kinda sociopathic. A while later, it dawned on me that perhaps this was half of his appeal. And late one night, when I was immensely frustrated with my latest not-going-well project, I thought, well...

...fuck it. Let's just write a proper, full-on, in-your-face-batshit-crazy sociopath.

Aeron Lore piped up at that moment and he hasn't shut up since.

Working with Aeron has been quite the extreme experience. In some ways, he was immense fun to write. At times, writing Aeron was a cathartic, freeing experience--I didn't have to worry whether people would like him. He could say all the things that many of us would love to say, but would never dare. And he was different to what I'd read before. That was exciting.

Then, of course, there were the days where I would email CPs and tell them I felt dirty writing him. That sometimes, the things that happened in this book were painfully sad (for example, when Aeron tries to tell Tuija that he's assaulted Leo, but she laughs it off as "foreplay." This happens). One day during my sociopath research, I sat my boyfriend down and gave him a big confessional about how I was obviously a sociopath because I'd done xxx horrible thing. He (rightly) laughed at me, but it didn't feel all that funny. At one point, a friend asked me how "things with Aeron" were going; I told her that if I could, I'd shoot him myself.



I really had no idea how people would feel about Aeron, who is unapologetically an asshole for the majority of the time. So when readers and bloggers began to get excited over my cover and blurb, I wasn't just thrilled--I was terrified. What if SOCIOPATH wasn't what people expected it to be? There was no dual POV (because Leo would have given away her secret way too early, and because in the beginning, I wasn't sure she could compete with Aeron's unique POV for an entire half book. Then of course I wrote her epilogue and was all, "where the fuck did YOU come from?!" but that's another story). There was no redemption. Aeron spends a lot of time inside his own head, which I knew not everyone would enjoy (but was kind of his playground). Finally, he has his...interesting sexual preferences. They speak for themselves.

The carousel of pre-release promo for SOCIOPATH played havoc with my nerves (the ladies at Bare Naked Words did a wonderful job with promotion). I tried not to look at Goodreads...and failed. I tried not to watch my pre-order Amazon rank too much...and failed (frankly, it was a novelty to have a pre-order rank at all). Then around a week before release, an email from a literary agent appeared in my inbox, asking if she could see the manuscript; at this point I had to hunt down some wine and give myself a stern talking to.



Basically, I spent the days before SOCIOPATH's release surviving on donuts and adrenaline. I read reviews as they came in: the good, the wtf?! and the bad. I celebrated the positives and tried to learn from the negatives. I talked to agents. I even attempted to take myself seriously...and failed, because that would mean I might have written something that a few people actually liked. About an asshole. "Surreal" didn't really cover it.



Release day came and went. I watched my sales rank go up to a ridiculous 140-something on Amazon, which was more than I could ever have hoped for. Since then, I've had reviews from bloggers I've followed for an age--readers I wasn't sure would ever notice me and my villainous "hero." I've had wonderful emails and messages from people all over the world, expressing their excitement and/or bemusement at reading SOCIOPATH and their relief that this is something a little different. I too was relieved (although my mother still wants to read it, so there's that).

This week, more awesomess has occurred. I'm delighted to say that I'm now represented by Kimberly Brower at Rebecca Friedman Literary. She read SOCIOPATH and said, "people won't know what to do with this book." In the best of ways, she was right. (She said a lot of other on-the-money stuff too, but that one really resonated with me). To say I'm excited to be on the same roster as some serious rockstars...that's an understatement.



So...what's next? Yet more awesomeness, I hope. I'll be announcing my next release on Friday. And in the meantime, to everyone who has read, talked about, or reviewed SOCIOPATH:

THANK YOU.

It means everything to me.

...because it's Friday. You get nice things on Fridays (like weekends).

Not that I'm excited, of course. At all. Ahem.

Anyway: here he is in all his dubious glory. Mr Aeron Lore, CEO of Lore Incorporated (a news media firm. He runs TV networks and newspapers, which he finds very...useful).

The cover actually reflects a scene in the book. I won't spoil it too much for now, but at some point, this is him...

"For another few seconds, I let her simmer alone in the hallway, let her wonder if she calls to me purely through wishful thinking, rather than logic or fear. Then, when I hear her step to search the bedroom, I spring to my feet and stalk out into the shadows to greet her."

Only a few days to go until the cover reveal on October 9th! I'm pretty damn excited.

;)