The competition in the book industry is bruising; I’ve taken my share of blows, and still struggle to stand after each knockdown. Even so, I offer you my still-beating heart in the form of Eien, the series ender of my queer vampire epic MASTER. But first, I request you read the enclosed letter to better understand my intentions—and, in case they are unclear, to decipher your own …
Dear Lover,
I’ve been haunted for as long as memory serves.
By dreams that have come to be, yet I’ve scarcely believed in because of their too-fortuitous occurrences; and by ones that have failed to disembark at their intended destinations.
By nightmares of murderous treachery, of bloodshed, betrayal, infidelity, and abuse.
By the faces of my foes, both concrete and chimeric, and my own towering indifference to my uncertain fate at their merciless hands.
By songs I’ve halfway sung, and stories I’ve barely begun.
By the fear of failing to finish my ambition’s missions before the hourglass sand empties; by the tales I haven’t yet told, smoldering inside my bereaved soul like unrequited love, or an impossible one.
But my finished deeds and completed works have lost the power to haunt me: in fact, they provide comfort as I traverse friendless terrain, picking my way through virtual gibes and mocking slurs slung from flagrant foes and fickle allies alike, shielding my eyes from the frosty glare of my self-denigrating inner eye.
From start to finish, I’ve seen my MASTER series through, proving to myself—by far my most vocal and ruthless critic—that I could complete the sanguine saga (inaugurated in the early 2000s) of tortured and titillated creatures of the night. That I would, and that I did.
What’s more: I’m proud of her, my undead story child; and of me, her vampire maker. I’m giving her the love she needs to thrive. In return, no one loves me more than she, my horror show, my dauntless freak, my exquisite monster.
I’m throwing her a party—I hope you’ll come. Maybe even ask her to dance, should the mood strike … should you refuse my cordial invite, however, I shan’t mind. She and I will celebrate no matter if we’re the sole attendees. When all is said and done, I only have eyes for her.
I invite you to get to know her. If you do, you might find you love her too. Not because she’s selfless, feeding you her blood until her veins collapse; or because she’s a martyr who’s willing to die and resurrect for the cause of your fleeting entertainment; or to satisfy a pleasure-filled box-check agenda; but because she’s a survivor who deserves the chance to thrive. After all, it’s taken her nearly sixteen years to reach you in her final format.
My lady languished for myriad seasons, collecting cobwebs, her word count un-accumulating, her plot stalling, her meat as flimsy as festering corpse flesh … until I chose to revive her, to give her another chance at life.
I’ve paid for her in time (years devoted to her advancement) as well as money (new zeroes after dollar signs with each addition to her length). I’ve sacrificed my pride to see her shine even as the clouds sought to hide her light.
It’s a unique form of torture, the agony of silence, watching your art being ignored, covertly cast aside, or quietly reviled. Suppressed, you feel. Oppressed. Repressed. Muted. Blocked.
Why, you wonder. Why me? Why her? Why us? Then you realize it doesn’t matter, because the hardest part is done—you kept your promise to her and her honor remains intact.
At the end of the day, you still love her even if no one else does. Their lack of love has no bearing on your excess of it. You may love her even more because she’s all yours. There’s a covetousness in your devotion. A shadowy jealousy.
Yet you know that to make her happy, you must let her go. She won’t really leave, though: she’s become a part of you. It’s the rare affair you don’t regret, the freedom found only in her arms. Does she likewise crave your touch? You think she must, because you brought her back to life. If you’d never picked her, she would have remained sitting on the draft shelf with the rest. She might be frittering the hours away to this day if you’d decided to fail her (yourself).
Oh, MASTER … as a besotted suitor craves the dopamine of charged interactions, of sparks exchanged with their object of desire, of the exciting ache suffered from the anticipation of romantic consummation, I hunger for a reader’s single-minded engagement with my spectral beauty—my plutonian siren.
Lover, view her through my eyes. Now view her through your own. Do you see?
How I long for you to stroke her seven spines, each with their own variation of appearance … I fantasize about your hand resting on her cover when you’re falling asleep—or better yet, I wish for her to keep you up at night until your eyelids shudder to a close, drooping like sleepy roses. You’d be exhausted from reading her deep into the hours of the moon’s rising and fading; the sun’s slumbering, then awakening.
I want to feel your unwavering gaze as you peruse her pages, learning what makes her tick, what terrifies and amazes her, what arouses her intellect.
I want to hear you gasp when she takes an action you don’t expect; whether in horror or delight, astonishment or rue, shock or awe, I want you to keep guessing what she’ll do next until you can’t stand it anymore; until you beg her to show you her design, your tone impatient, frayed, wrought with tension as she makes you wait.
I want you to fall for her as I have, and as other readers will, given time, luck, and circumstance.
I want you to admire her as you admire the rest of the stories in your collection. Should you succumb to her unsung charms, please grant her a special place of her own so she’s guaranteed to flourish. (As flowers, no two books are exactly alike in your fictional garden, your literary harem.)
I want you to always want her, despite the fading of her ink, her yellowing pages, the cracks in her spine as she submits to the passage of time.
To those of you who will love my MASTER not, I wish you well and hope you find your fated match. The next occasion you pick up a book, I hope it’s the one that will sustain your interest, feed your ravenous imagination, and occupy your vast mindscape with a thrilling plot, characters to adore, and writing to feather the wings of your fancy so that it may take flight. I hope you will devour your book from skin to core; and afterwards, when you are sated, flushed with the pleasure of hours well spent, I hope you will read it again.
As for me, I’ll let love lead, and see where she takes me next.
Devoutly,
Jayne
Eien (MASTER, Book 7), the final installment in darkly romantic queer vampire series MASTER, releases on January 12, 2024 at your preferred online bookstore and in paperback on Amazon (and select retailers). If you’d like the publisher to add MASTER to a platform that isn’t listed in the purchase link, please leave a comment on this blog post or email r.n.jayne@inq-idly.com
Series Overview
With humor and horror to spare, MASTER details the transformation of self-serving vampire Raiden from indolent rockstar to grudging guru after the phantoms of his traumatic past invade his chaotic present.
Other major players:
Gabriel, a golden idol of the small screen whose obsession with Raiden precludes his downfall.
Naomi, Raiden’s ethereal, cunning ex-fiancée, murdered by his hand but enslaved by another’s.
Justus, Raiden’s vampire maker and tormentor, the epitome of gleeful psychopathy made flesh.
***
Sneak Peek
Eien’s book trailer, created with Canva Pro, contains major plot spoilers for MASTER Books 1-7 (ditto for this excerpt from Eien—scroll down past the book blurb and trailer to read it). If you’re new to the series, download the award-winning Crimson (MASTER, Book 1) for free from your favorite eBook retailer.
Need to kill some time with a binge read? Peruse my free web novel Bare Possibilities, a farcical comedy of errors featuring an awkward boy-boy-boy love/lust triangle, mile-per-minute one-liners, and frequent occurrences of secondhand embarrassment guaranteed to make you cringe.
***
Other titles
Primer series: A quirky collegiate embarks on an erotic odyssey of sexual self-discovery that reignites her passion for the pen.
Poison duology: A mouthy sub and his arrogant Dom go head-to-head in a slew of sadomasochistic mind games.
***
Coming soon
The Second-Best Thing, a wincing portrait of the romantic fallout between genderqueer writer Trent and her partner Alicia, a fierce femme whose addictive personality and need for control wreaks havoc on their established relationship.
When Trent develops an intense attraction to their roommate Sam, the emotional devastation of her impulsive actions accelerates the development of imposter syndrome, threatening to end her career before it’s truly begun—and inspires Alicia to find a far more dangerous addiction than her obsession with manipulating Trent …