Catching Up, Part 1

Photo by Patrycja Kwiatkowska

​After being sick for so long, I have a lot of catching up to do in letting everyone know what's been going on with Author Versus AI! So, without further ado, here's my first grouping of videos to tell you what books I was writing during the past month and a few excerpts from them too.

First off, I'm hopping in my time travel machine and going back to Week 22. If you remember, I was working on an epic fantasy novel called Of Seas & Crowns. Here's my original post on what the book's about, and here's me reading an excerpt from it:

Next up was Week 23. I was on a fantasy kick, so I jumped into an urban fantasy novel with both feet. It was called The Red King of Chinatown, and here's what it's about:

It’s no wonder that red is a lucky color in China, the color of life—it’s also the color of blood. Jun is a vampire who is “king” of Chinatown in New York City. He was exiled from his home during the Shanghai massacre, which provided cover for elements that were purging vampires from the city. Narrowly escaping with his life and nothing else, he’s built an empire in New York City over the past century of wealth and power. Now, he runs his own select group of vampires with very strict rules, supported by a vast network of income from the properties he owns, including apartments and restaurants. He spends most nights at a pool hall/bar near Spring Street.
 
Twenty-four-year-old Rebecca is visiting her mom’s friend Katy in New York City for the first time after saving up from her first job out of college. She’s eager to experience all that NYC has to offer, but when she has a chance meeting with “king” Jun, she’s fascinated—although he looks barely older than her, he’s obviously highly respected. The feeling seems mutual, because he invites her to dinner at one of his restaurants. Katy knows who he is and his reputation and warns her off, but Rebecca says she’ll go anyway. To protect her, Katy gives her a charm to wear, which works well enough to ward him off.
 
The dance amuses Jun and also intrigues him. A game of cat and mouse ensues, and as Rebecca gets pulled further and further into Jun’s world, there seems as if there will be a price to pay in their high-stakes friendship, especially when a rival vampire starts to encroach on Jun’s territory. Will they be able to see eye to eye across their cultural and time divisions, or will their growing relationship just be another blip in Jun’s long life as he faces an underground vampire civil war?

And a video of me talking about it:

And last for this post, me reading an excerpt from The Red King of Chinatown:

Although I didn't post daily word counts on my blog for this book, the final word count ended up being 43,005 words.

I'll be back tomorrow with some more videos to play catch-up. Until then, have a great day!