Happy 2016!

Okay, it’s been a while since we posted an update, but we had a good excuse: we were writing a really, really, really long book.

Beyond Ruin is already longer than all but 2 of the current novels, and as we settle in to write the final chapters over the next few days, I anticipate it will eventually take the crown. It’s a big book, and I’m excited and terrified and in love with it (all normal emotions for this stage of the game–I’m having a lot of end-of-book feels!) but mostly I’m excited that we’re getting close to having it ready to share.

Once we finish it and get it into our editor’s hands, we’ll be setting the production wheels in motion. Once we know how much revision we’re looking at, we’ll set a release date and let everyone know. As we told people on Facebook, we’re counting weeks now, not months.

If you’re not signed up to our announcement newsletter, now is a good time to fix that!

And strap yourselves in, VIPs. This book is going to change everything for the O’Kanes.

And now for something completely different…

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Aug 19

So, a lot of you have probably heard about this already, but this is just making it official and what-not.

As mentioned previously, we have to take a break in between Beyond books to refresh our brains and keep the stories and the world fresh and exciting for us to write. In 2014 we tried to write novellas in between the books, but that didn’t go so well…by the end of the year, we were tired.

So this year, as soon as Beyond Innocence was done, we picked up a project we’d started last summer but had put aside because we just didn’t have time to finish it. This project was exciting to us. It was different from anything we’d ever written. It wasn’t about saving the world or killing bad guys before they kill you. It was about the quieter ways we break and the struggle to feel normal.

When the time came to publish, we considered releasing this book as Kit Rocha. But it is different. You won’t find dystopian hijinks or grown-ups fighting wars or having crazy hot sex parties within these pages. So we decided on a new name–a name we’ll share, hoping you might want to read something a little different–but a name that makes it clear that this is something different.

So meet Joelle Knox.

Anything but Broken

After five years, tragedy brings Hannah Casey back to Hurricane Creek to bury what’s left of her family. She’s flunking out of college, haunted by scandal, and the only person who cares is Sean Whitlow, an irresistible bad boy with a soft spot for her. The problem? He’s her dead sister’s ex.

Sean doesn’t bleed red, he bleeds motor oil. During the week, he struggles to turn his auto repair shop into a profitable business. But when Saturday night rolls around, he’s the reigning stock-car king of the local race track. He doesn’t know how to lose–or how to walk away and leave Hannah alone with her grief.

Between her grades and her wealthy family’s dark secrets, Hannah’s barely holding her life together. And the last thing Sean needs is to get tangled up with another Casey girl. As the attraction between them spins out of control, they’ll either find a love with no limits–or go up in flames.

Available August 25th (Preorder Now)
Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, Kobo, ARe, Google

We’ll be back in our writer cave after this, working on the next in the Beyond series with fresh hearts and great excitement. Also we’re going to do terrible things to the sectors, so you have that to look forward to. 😉

What’s next for the Beyond series?

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Jul 31

As we settle in to writing Beyond Ruin, we finally have a solid enough view of the Beyond series to answer a few questions about where it’s headed, when it’s ending, and what comes next.

What?! The series is ending?!

Yes, all good things must come to a graceful end. Though I will say that ending the novel series doesn’t mean you won’t see more stories or novellas from familiar, beloved characters. Just that the big action arc we set in motion for Dallas & Lex and their people will be coming to a conclusion soon.

When?!

Don’t worry! You have some time to brace yourselves. In fact, we have enough action-packed O’Kane hijinks to carry us through the end of 2016 with the final three books:

If you’re leaving Sector Four, where are you going next?!

Not very far! Just around the corner to Sector One. Mad and his cousin Gideon have long been fan favorites, and preparation for Mad’s book got us excited to explore another Sector with some fascinating possibilities. If you’re interested, we have a few hints about the scope of the series and the first hero here.

We hope you’re as excited as we are. 😀

Virtual Signing Update

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Jul 15

Whew, y’all.

160+ orders and 697 books later, we are closing in on the end of this round of the Virtual Signing. I’m going to keep it open for a couple more weeks and do a second mail out in August to catch those of you waiting for paychecks, but the BIG BIG one for everyone who has ordered books thus far is happening on Sunday. (Books ordered from here on out will be shipped on August 15th at the latest.)

I am blown away, honestly. A little nervous about signing close to 700 books, but way more excited. The first year we had 96. Last year we had close to 250. Jumping to 700 this year has been a bit of a logistical adventure (plus the UPS guy really, really hates me…do you know how heavy 700 trade paperback books are?!) but I am just… there are no words, y’all. Thank you for reading, for buying, and for being O’Kanes. #okane4life

Here’s a taste of what my office looks like this morning:

A few frequently asked questions…and their answers! Kinda.

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Jun 23

Since a few of you have asked recently, I’m answering a few questions I’ve seen floating around. (If you have another question, leave it in the comments. :D)

Does the Beyond series end with book #7?

No! Right now, it’s the only upcoming book on our coming soon page because we need to get into writing it before we’ll be sure how a few important plot points are going to shake out. Those will decide which order the next few stories come in.

But I thought Book #8 was Nessa’s book!

Yes, there used to be a spoiler page up saying that book #8 is Nessa’s book. And I guess it’s not a spoiler anymore because while we definitely have a story to tell for Nessa, it proooobably won’t be book #8. Sometimes the plot changes direction on us and we follow!

What happened to Beyond Ecstasy? I thought that was #6.5

The novellas were very fun, but it turns out that we couldn’t sustain that pace. We need a couple months in between Beyond books to write something different. That gives our mind some time to recharge. Writing a novella in between each release last year is why we hit November so burned out we needed to take 6 weeks off before we could start the next book. (And why Beyond Innocence ended up later than we wanted it to be.)

So for now…even though we have a lot of characters with smaller stories that might be fun to tell, we’re going to have to wait and tell them later, after the main novel series is complete.

What about the couple who were going to be in #6.5?

Their story, it turned out, was NOT small. They are probably one of the upcoming books we’re thinking about right now.

So if you need a break in between books, what are you writing now?

You may find out some day soon. wink emoticon But we’ll be back to work on Beyond Ruin by the end of the summer, and whoo boy. That’s gonna be a long, dirty book.

What about Ashwin? Is he going to get a book?

*twirls mustache*

Okay, what about Ryder?

Mwahahahahaha.

Will you tell me ANYTHING?

We’re thinking seriously about the plots of books 8, 9 & 10 right now. Nothing is set in stone…but you don’t have to worry about the series going away this year.

So take a deep breath, O’Kane VIPs, and have a shot on us!

Summer 2015 Virtual Signing

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Jun 8

Hey guys! It’s time to start getting a rough idea of how many of you are interested in the Summer 2015 virtual signing! For those of you who haven’t done this before, it goes roughly like this:

Step One: You fill out this form to give us an idea of which books you’d like to have personalized & signed! (Signed books will have some swag, bookmarks, stickers & maybe even goodies from other authors!)
Step Two: We figure out how many books to order and fill Bree’s office with giant boxes of them!
Step Three: We open the Virtual Signing to orders from the people who have filled out this form. They get a head start, which means they get the goodies. (Swag might run out, and if books run out, later orders may have to wait for us to reorder.)
Step Four: We sign, personalize, pack & ship many, many boxes. And we do it gleefully. #okane4life
Step Five: BOOKS FOR EVERYONE!

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NOTES ABOUT SHIPPING

Shipping varies based on the size box we estimate we’ll have to use for your order. Because of the complicated nature of shipping and how much time we can reasonably spend on this, we can only offer shipping in flat rate boxes. We know this can be really pricey for people outside the US, and we’re sorry, but it’s the best we can do at the moment. We will be offering autographed bookplates again, for those outside the US who’d like to order them. They only cost a few dollars.

United States

Flat Rate Envelope: $6 (1-2 books)
Flat Rate Medium Box: $12 (3-10 books)
Flat Rate Large Box: $16 (10-20 books)

Canada

Flat Rate Envelope: $20 (1-2 books)
Flat Rate Medium Box: $40 (3-10 books)
Flat Rate Large Box: $52 (10-20 books)

Everywhere Else

Flat Rate Envelope: $24 (1-2 books)
Flat Rate Medium Box: $60 (3-10 books)
Flat Rate Large Box: $75 (10-20 books)

Get started on Beyond Innocence before midnight!

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment May 19

Pre-orders for Beyond Innocence will start dropping tonight at midnight, but it’s cruel to make you guys wait. So if you’d like to get started before the book goes live tonight, you can grab the first nine chapters of the book here: [download id=”6516″]

Beyond Innocence: Beyond Series #6

For years, Jared has existed on the fringes of both Eden society and Dallas O’Kane’s Sector Four gang. He travels between these worlds, protected by his money and power–money he earned selling his body, and power that comes from knowing secrets. He’s untouchable—until he starts a new life gathering intelligence for the O’Kanes.

Lili Fleming walked out of Sector Five with a gun, the bloodstained clothes on her back, and an icy determination to survive. She finds herself in a world where people live hard and love harder, and nothing’s more terrifying than how much the O’Kanes wake her up, make her feel—especially Jared.

Emotion is a risk he can’t afford, and a complication she doesn’t need. But neither can resist the lust simmering between them, and the sparks that could either melt the ice around both their hearts…or get them killed. Because the only thing more dangerous than loving an O’Kane is loving a spy.

Pre-Order the Ebook Now!
Amazon US, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, Amazon AUS, Kobo, All Romance eBooks

Beyond Innocence Comes Out May 20th!

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment May 12

Beyond Innocence – Book Six

It’s almost here, guys! Pre-order here:
Amazon US, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, Kobo, All Romance eBooks

Beyond Innocence Review Copies

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Apr 23

Good news, O’Kanes! We are almost finished with Beyond Innocence and should be delivering it into the loving hands of our editor within the next couple weeks. Once we have the first round of edits back and know how much work we have to get this book in perfect shape, we’ll announce the official release date and get it up for pre-order at a few places, at the very least. But it certainly won’t be long now, which means…

GET READY, REVIEWERS!

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I hope you guys are as excited about this as we are. 😀

Beyond Innocence update & all about audiobooks!

By Kit Rocha Leave a Comment Mar 15

Where’s Beyond Innocence?!?

Our initial estimate was early 2015. Alas, one of us had a few health complications later in 2014 that lead to the deadline on Beyond Possession being a lot tighter than we wanted. We always end up a little short on writing time during the holidays, and this year we took a little extra time off to try to get some much-needed energy restored.

Some of you have asked how the pre-order experiment went with Beyond Possession. It’s still hard to say for sure–I think it helped us on some sites and hurt us on Amazon (the math of publishing is mysterious and strange!) but in this case, the sales were not the biggest problem.

The best part of self-publishing, for us, is that the books get to take us exactly as long as they take us. Sometimes that means we finish them more quickly than expected (that was Beyond Addiction!) Sometimes we get stuck and have to backtrack to make sure we’ve got the right plot and are writing the best story we can.

Setting a pre-order date puts a limit on that freedom, and after last year, we’ve decided that, for now, that limit isn’t worth it. These books are very intense to write, and now that we’re deep into the sector plot, they’re getting even more complicated!

So we’re going to go back to keeping you updated as we write, and if we do put up any pre-orders, it will be after the book is finished. I know that keeps you guys guessing, and no one likes guessing, but I hope you all agree that the first priority has to be giving us enough time to write a kick-ass book.

As it stands, we’ve got a good foundation down for Beyond Innocence and writing is going a lot faster now. But as much as I hate to torment you, we won’t be picking an official date until the book is done and we know we can meet it. That keeps us healthy, keeps the books the best we can make them, and saves you guys the disappointment.

After a slow start in audio, we’re finally catching up. Beyond Temptation is available now, Beyond Solitude is in final approval, and Beyond Possession is with our narrator. We’re hoping to be mostly caught up by the time Beyond Innocence comes out, and we’ll be getting to that one a lot faster, too, if all goes well.

Here are the audiobooks available now:

Beyond Shame