Please share one or two goals or aspirations you have as an agent for the upcoming weeks and months.
 

ELAINE SPENCER: As fall closes in on us I would love to add another client or two to my list so we can hit the ground running in 2017 with some big sales! I’m especially eager to add a great women’s fiction project or romantic suspense author to the mix–I want to spend the rest of 2016 reading great submissions! I also have a couple of amazing stories out on submission that I’m looking forward to closing deals on soon!

LUCIENNE DIVER: I’ve got some wonderful novels out on submission that I believe in 110%. My goal is to get them all sold to the right editors at the right houses to make them a smashing success.

MELISSA JEGLINSKI: I’m still looking to sign at least one new client before the end of year. I’m especially interested in Middle Grade and Mystery projects so I’m hoping to read something fantastic in the next few weeks. This should also help me in achieving my second goal of catching up with all of my reading. 


 

» R.S. Belcher's latest Golgotha book, a sequel to THE SIX-GUN TAROT and THE SHOTGUN ARCANA, as well as sequels to NIGHTWISE and his forthcoming BROTHERHOOD OF THE WHEEL, to Greg Cox of Tor, in a nice deal by Lucienne Diver

» Shannon Curtis's two novels in the SHADOW BREEDS series of paranormal romances, to Ann Leslie Tuttle for Harlequin Nocturne, in a nice deal by Lucienne Diver

» Gena Showalter's next four books, to Margaret O'Neill Marbury at HQN, in a major deal by Deidre Knight

» Amy Woods's TEAROOM MYSTERIES #6, to Jon Woodhams at Guideposts, by Melissa Jeglinski

» Brenda Minton's contribution to the LONE STAR COWBOY LEAGUE continuity, to Melissa Endlich at Harlequin Love Inspired, by Melissa Jeglinski
 

Sales Roundup is a selective sampling of TKA's deals for the past month. For more info on our recent sales, visit www.knightagency.net/recent-deals.

Michelle Belanger is most widely recognized for her work on television's Paranormal State, in which she explored abandoned prisons and haunted houses while blindfolded and in high heels. A leading authority on psychic and supernatural topics, her nonfiction books have been sourced in television shows, university courses, and numerous publications around the world.

Her thrilling paranormal fiction series is published through Titan Books and begins with CONSPIRACY OF ANGELS.
 
TKA: You've long been known for nonfiction work dealing with the occult and paranormal world. When did you decide to make the jump to fiction, and was the transition difficult?

Michelle: When I first started writing professionally, most of my earliest publishing credits and awards were for short fiction, so it's less of a transition and more of a reunion. That said, over the past decade, I've gained the widest recognition for my nonfiction books, like THE DICTIONARY OF DEMONS, so there has been a bit of necessary re-branding. The trickiest part has involved making certain I can carry my audience from one aspect of my writing to the other. As I was developing the Shadowside Series, I kept that in mind. I didn't want to give up my nonfiction interests so much as I wanted to create an alternate world where I could play "What if...?" CONSPIRACY OF ANGELS introduces that world, where I gleefully straddle all the spooky interests close to my heart, from ghosts to vampires to fallen angels to psychic phenomena.
 
TKA: Please tell us a bit about the world, the players, and the stakes of CONSPIRACY OF ANGELS, and what sets it apart from other paranormal fiction.

Michelle: The action plays out in Cleveland, Ohio, along the dark waters of Lake Erie. The main character is Zack Westland, and the story unfolds from his point of view. His is a haunted world, where spirits roam the space a half-step off from the flesh—a space Zack learns to call the Shadowside. Zack's sensitivity to the Shadowside is his first clue that he's not like other people—though, with his memory pillaged by forces unknown, his understanding remains minimal. His first guide to rediscovering the truth behind his differences is his "brother" Remy, who does his best to navigate divided loyalties so Zack doesn't end up dead—again. One of Remy's biggest obstacles in the loyalty department is Saliriel, a six-foot-six transgender vampire. Sal is the owner of Club Heaven, and she's best described as Machiavelli in garters. She's also Remy's boss, and she holds a power over him that he is hard-pressed to defy. Lil, the Lady of Beasts, completes Zack's collection of dubious allies when she arrives on the scene demanding that Zack find her missing sister, Lailah. All of these are people Zack has ties to from his past—if only he could remember which are enemies and which are friends.

As he seeks to piece together the fragments of his broken life, Zack discovers himself embroiled in a web of betrayal and intrigue, where warring angelic tribes pursue their centuries-old agendas stemming from a series of ancient conflicts known as the Blood Wars. Although a tenuous peace has reigned for many years, Zack's tribe, the Anakim, have been disappearing one by one—and he is almost certainly the next to go, if he can't figure out what was taken from him and why. 

What makes it stand out? I'm biased, of course, so I want to cite a lot of things, like Sal's gender identity being no big deal (once Zack wraps his head around it), or how the angelic mythos of the world is not your standard Heaven and Hell stuff, but draws its main themes from myths far older and deeper. But I think what will stand out to readers the most is the way I weave real paranormal concepts and practices into the fabric of the world. Yes, this is fantasy, but I am someone who has spent time blindfolded in haunted prisons. I have witnessed a Catholic priest performing rites to protect a girl from an entity he fully believed was a demon. I have heard voices I could not explain captured in a recorder, and I have seen the imprints of trauma replay in misty detail at the site of a hundred-year-old murder. To write about the paranormal—to write about anything in fiction—one does not need to be an expert on the subject. But it helps. That plays out with soldiers who write military fiction, and that plays out here, in Conspiracy of Angels. I am sharing little glimpses of my world and spinning them into a new shape so that Zack—and through him, the reader—can experience some of the wonders and the horrors I have seen. 
 
TKA: What was your writing process for CONSPIRACY OF ANGELS, and do you have the entire series plotted out?

Michelle: I'm a spark-then-plot writer. All my stories begin as this gripping flash of inspiration, and if I decide to keep it, then I develop the rest of the world and its characters around that spark. My development phase involves a lot of worldbuilding—it's typical for me to compose historical documents, mythic cycles, and character mini-stories as part of my process. This immerses me in the crafted reality and allows me to really fine-tune the architecture that underpins the subsequent stories that unfold in that reality. I've already written a LOT of material about Zack's world, the tribes of angels, and all the other strange beings which populate the Shadowside. At this point, the broad strokes of the series are all laid out, with some wiggle-room to accommodate characters that might take a direction I didn't foresee. 

I remember the exact moment the series occurred to me. I was sitting outside a reputedly haunted home in California, waiting for a tribal shaman to finish doing a cleansing ceremony. I started thinking about how my life had become this improbable adventure like something out of an Urban Fantasy novel. And then I considered what the characters in that world would be like. It wasn't long before I grabbed a notebook and started scribbling down one of the first few scenes of CONSPIRACY OF ANGELS—Zack on a motorcycle, riding toward the skyline of Cleveland, with a promise of answers ahead and the threat of something dark at his back.
 
TKA: If you could choose one takeaway for your readers, what would it be?
 
Michelle: These aren't your grandmother's angels. In constructing the tribes of CONSPIRACY OF ANGELS, I dug down to the roots of the Judeo-Christian tradition, extending my worldbuilding to include much older sources where the concepts of evil and redemption begin to blur. It's in those treacherous gray spaces where Zack's story really unfolds—and where the greatest crises reside. 

 
TKA: Lucienne Diver is your agent. Could you share a bit about how you found her and what you like best about working with her?

Michelle: Once I had the manuscript for CONSPIRACY OF ANGELS polished to the point where I felt comfortable looking for an agent, I started paying attention to who represented the writers I looked up to, as well as the writers who were well-known in the Urban Fantasy genre. Lucienne's name stood out in that search. The fact that she also wrote fiction herself was a bonus. I read through the Knight Agency roster, just to be sure, and several agents there stood out, but Lucienne remained my top pick. I sent only three agent queries out in that first try. Lucienne was the top of the list, and she got back to me rather quickly. We chatted through email, and then by phone, and we both decided that this was something that would work. It was also helpful that Lucienne was familiar with some of my nonfiction work, and was very supportive that I continue that work.

Lucienne's strength as an agent is her whip-smart business savvy. She knows the value of an author's work, and she does not hesitate to argue for it. She keeps me in the loop and is very clear about every step we're taking with a particular work. And, as a writer herself, she has solid input for improving my craft. I feel very lucky to have her.

TKA: Finally, how many books do you have planned in the Shadowside series, and how long will readers need to wait for Book Two?

Michelle: I have a sequence of trilogies plotted out, where each set of three books is essentially an act in the story's meta-arc. There are twelve books planned for that, but I won't rule out additional stories and tie-ins that weave throughout the full-length novels. 

Zack is the point-of-view character for that twelve-book arc, but several other characters are clamoring for me to recount things in their voice. Lil is one of those who really wants me to write something from her POV. But she'll have to wait a bit, because she's so clued in on so many fronts, I can't put her center-stage until more of Zack's story plays out. There'd be too many spoilers.

For readers eager to get more of Zack, the second book in the series, HARSH GODS, will hit the stands around this time next year. THE RESURRECTION GAME will follow in 2017. And there are shorter adventures, novellas and tasty story-bites that will be released in between the novels of the major arc to tide fans over. 

Visit Michelle's official website, follow her on Twitter, and join her fans on Facebook.

Lily Everett is the author of the Sanctuary Island series, including the latest, HOME FOR CHRISTMAS.

Lily's Tip: The best advice I've ever gotten from my editor is this: Don't stockpile your good ideas. Put everything you've got into the book you're writing now, and trust that the well will refill itself when it's time to write the next one. Don't be afraid! There is no limit to how many good ideas you can come up with.
 
That was life-changing advice for me, because (like most of us, I think) I tend to discover new twists, perfect backstories, and stunning revelations as I'm writing. I used to be reluctant to dismantle whatever outline I'd started with in order to include them, instead preferring to save those great ideas for future heroes and heroines. The problem with that is that inspiration strikes when it does for a reason, and a lot of the time when I went back around to those great ideas for later books, they felt stale and less exciting. Now when I get a brainwave, I push up my sleeves and figure out how to use it right away, and the entire process is so much more satisfying... and yields better stories!

For more information about Lily, be sure to visit www.lilyeverett.com.