Damaged Gods by K.C. Cross, J.A. Huss

END OF BOOK SHIT

Welcome to the End of Book Shit. This is the last chapter in all my books where I get to have an opinion about what you just read. It’s never edited, I write them last minute… blah, blah blah. You know the drill.

But I’ve been thinking about these EOBS’s lately because of all the crazy shit that’s happening in the world and how in like fifty years, or whatever, people might want to read journals about people who lived through this time in history. Maybe? For historical context? And I have always wanted to write a journal or have a diary but I’m just so not that… what’s the word?

Reliable?

Dependable?

Responsible?

I think all of these words fit.

I like the idea of having a journal but I just don’t have the ability to follow through. Nor do I have the time to just casually ponder the day’s events each evening and then spend hours making pretty bullet-journal pages. If you do that, I wish I was you. I would love to be that kind of person, I’m just not.

I once took part in this study in college. This woman was doing her master’s on blah, blah and she put an ad out on the college board or wherever the fuck it was I saw this ad, looking for women who “fit this certain profile” and I fit the certain profile and my life was a shit show of epic proportions at the time, so I contacted her. And she wrote her fucking master’s thesis about me. lol

I’m literally laughing out loud as I type that this actually happened.

I had a copy of it and everything. It was a serious hardcover book. Of course, I was anonymous. And I never read her thesis. Just… fuck that. But when we first met in person, she asked me to keep a journal so she could “get my honest thoughts” about things. And I told her to fuck right off. I do not journal.

So I’ve known for a long time that future generations would never get my personal slant on things. I came to terms with it.

But then, I started thinking, well, these End of Book Shits are kinda like personal essays. And I’ve got a shit ton of them by now. This is book number who-the-fuck-knows. And all but the very first couple of Junco books have an EOBS because I started writing these in March of 2013.

So I guess the joke is on me, eh?

Anyway.

Here’s my point. My EOBS is about writing. Because this Damaged Gods book is a first.

My very first paranormal romance.

Junco was not paranormal romance. I could lie and say it was, but when I wrote Junco I didn’t even know what a genre was. That’s why that series has no real genre.

Is it a romance? Not exactly.

Is it paranormal? Not exactly.

Is it sci-fi? Yeah. Mostly it is. Except for those “angels” right?

So I guess it’s a sci-fi thriller. That’s what RJ, my one and only editor for almost ten years now, called it at the time. And she would know better than me. She has an actual degree in shit like that and I went to school to be a veterinarian then ended up with a masters in forensic toxicology. So I actually know nothing about the “serious world of publishing”.

So after Junco I just went full-on sexy romantic suspense until the Anarchy supervillain series in 2016-ish. And then I got super bored in 2019 and decided to write the Harem Station series. I set out to write the most ridiculous sci-fi romance I could because have you seen the state of sci-fi romance lately? lol Yeah. It’s… a unique genre. And I figured, hell—let’s just give those boys two dicks. It felt like a really funny idea at the time. But that series got serious and… long.

Harem Station was not paranormal. It really was a full-on sci-fi alien romance so this is why I got the KC Cross pen name. I didn’t want a pen name, but I could see the reviews in my future. And listen, while I generally give no fucks about reviews, I do like to meet expectations of readers. I didn’t want any of my one-click fans to one-click Booty Hunter and be like—what is this alien with two-dicks shit?

So I gave myself a pen name and made that name the most prominent text on the cover so long-time readers would pause before they clicked and actually make sure this was a story they wanted.

That worked, BTW. If I got any reviews complaining that readers were “tricked” I didn’t see them.

I thought maybe I’d write three or four books in that series. But it turned into seven.

And then, because I am always plotting six or seven stories in my head as I’m writing my current work in progress, I figured I was gonna write some vampires. I have a really cool “new take” on vampires. And that’s coming. I’ve been thinking about that story for about three or four years now and I’m just about to the point where I’m ready to get to work.

But then I came up with this monster romance idea last summer. I had the actual Damaged Gods title for about two years now. So I had been thinking about that story—meaning, the story that went with that title. And it was always one girl who got stuck with monsters, but I couldn’t quite pull together how this whole scenario came to be until I stumbled into the subtitle, The Monsters of Saint Mark’s.

I don’t think I’ve ever said this before in any other EOBS, but I always have a title for the story first and then I build the story off the title. Sometimes this doesn’t work. Sometimes the title gets tossed because the story went a different way. But most of the time it does work. Because once I get a title, or in this case, a subtitle, I have a direction.

So this is how I ended up with this story of Pie, Pell, and Tomas.

And I had the first scene. I had the gas station, the flyer on the bulletin board, and her first encounter with the sanctuary and the three people inside it.

But I didn’t have anything after that. Nothing. I literally pulled this story out of my brain one page at a time once I sat down to seriously write it in January 2021. I didn’t even have the fucking bird. I think I added Pia about a week after I started writing.

Writing Damaged Gods was exciting for me. I had just come off polishing up Sick Heart which is a very… I mean, it’s dark. But it’s also sweet. But it’s very serious. Very serious.

So Damaged Gods was going to be my fun book.

And I needed a fun book in the worst way—not because of Sick Heart. Though, that was part of it. But because I just spent two fucking years writing TWO seven-book series.

Oh. My god.

I don’t think people understand how hard it is to write a long series like Harem Station and Bossy Brothers, both of which have a stupid-complicated mystery running through all seven books, and then have to pull all those threads together in one final story.

It’s pretty stressful. The time between Harem Station book six (Veiled Vixen) and Harem Station book seven (Uncrossed) was almost a year and a half. And every day when I woke up to write both Uncrossed and the last Bossy book, Luke, I was soooooooooo unmotivated. I wanted to do anything BUT write those two books.

I am fully aware that I do this to myself because I always write these twisted plots. It’s so hard for me to write a straight-forward plot. My story brain just doesn’t work that way. And every single time, without fail, there I am on the last book going why the fuck did I write all that complicated shit?

I get stuck every time. I would not call this writer’s block. It’s just ending block. lol

And this has always happened for as long as I’ve been writing because in order to have a perfect ending it must be “inevitable, but unexpected”. That’s a direct quote from Larry Brooks, author of Story Engineering. And Story Engineering was one of two books that taught me how to plot a story back in 2011.

So even back in 2013 when I writing the last Junco book (again, six-book series, stupid-complicated plot) I had to stop writing the last book to figure out how Junco was going to save the world. I had the very last scene—I had that last scene from the very first day I started writing that series. But I didn’t have anything else. The story kind of wrote itself. So I had to stop writing the last book for about a week because my climax scene wasn’t right. And then, BAM. The scene came to me while I was in the shower. And I sat down that day and wrote the rest of the book in one sitting.

This happened in Manic, Rook & Ronin book two. And that was only book TWO. That manuscript was due to my editor at 5 AM (she’s on UK time) and I was literally writing the end at 4:30. This was back in the day when RJ didn’t just drop everything to help me out, we were both really new. She needed time to get the edits done. So this was a serious deadline. And I could not find the epilogue for Rook in Manic until I figured out what Spencer was painting on her body at Sturgis.

This happened in The Company. Don’t get me started on the stress of ending that series. It was so bad. It happened in Meet me in the Dark. It happened in Mr. Match. I thought I was going to die writing that book five.

But there’s a pattern here. And a point.

And the point is: Book One is easy.

Standalone books are easy too.

But last book in series?

That is the definition of SUCKS.

I hated every moment of writing Uncrossed and Bossy Luke. And part of it was just 2020. Every day people were talking about new crazy shit. I don’t even know how I got any writing done but I released five books in 2020. It was a very difficult time to be creative. Especially when you MUST end your book with a happily ever after. (#1 Rule of Romance.) That’s why Sick Heart took me six months to write. Though Sick Heart is way up there with Ford and Junco as far as my own personal favorites go.

And of course I love both Bossy Luke and uncrossed now. I have listened to the audiobook of Uncrossed so many times, I lost count. It’s such a good audiobook. I love it. And the ending of Bossy Luke made that whole struggle worth it. Just… Nick Tate, man. I love that guy. (And he’s coming back in Gorgeous Misery and Lovely Darkness!) And I got a LOT of satisfaction when I tied the little girls in Luke to the same little girls in Wasted Lust. Seriously, I’m not gonna lie. That was the best moment in the entire series for me. And I think a lot of readers who went on the full Rook & Ronin/Company/Bossy journey got that same satisfaction. Someone wrote something like, “Why didn’t I wonder where those little girls came from in Wasted Lust?” I didn’t wonder either. Not until the ending of Luke and then those scenes with Posie and the girls turned into the only scenes that mattered as far as I was concerned.

Ending a series is very satisfying. (Once it’s done).

But starting a series—that’s the BEST of all worlds in my opinion. You don’t have to worry about all those stray plot points or how old everyone is.

Oh. My God. Let me just tell you about ages. I just finished the Vicious book and this is in the Rook & Ronin world. Specifically in Spencer and Veronica’s world. And they have all those damn kids. I wanted to kill myself every time I needed to know how old these kids were. I had to go searching through six years of emails to actually find where I wrote it down. Now you know why I never delete emails and have hundreds of thousands of them just hanging out in my inbox. And now you also know why I can’t journal. I am just not that organized.

Anyway. Damaged Gods is book one and I loved it. I loved this whole story.

And I’m not saying writing it was easy or that it’s perfect, or anything like that. But I surprised myself several times as I pulled this story together. It was a fun escape for me.

And I LOVE the cover. I made the Damaged Gods cover months ago and when I was done I just sat and looked at it for like a week and then immediately started making magnets and stickers to celebrate.

I’m very happy that there will be a book two and hopefully it’s up for pre-order right now. It’s May as I write this—this book is going to narrators in a couple days—so I won’t even have the cover reveal for another month.

So my plan is to have book two, SAVAGE SAINTS, up for pre-order when Damaged Gods releases. I love that cover too. I just made it like a week ago and wow. I don’t usually get to make covers like that (and when you see it, you’ll understand) because covers for romance need to look a certain way and covers for paranormal or fantasy need to look another certain way. So doing these covers was amazing.

I am planning on a March 2022 release for Savage Saints and I know that feels like a long gap between the two books but listen. I learned my lesson in 2020. I don’t want to wake up dreading my job the way I did last year. I am not interested in the stress of deadlines anymore.

Why write fun books like this if I can’t enjoy them?

When I started Damaged Gods I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do a series but when the interior of Tarq’s tomb popped up out of nowhere my excitement level for a book two became very, very high. I had originally planned something more frightening and suspenseful for Pie’s tomb trip. But I love the way Tarq turned out. And I especially love that Tarq now owns Pie’s debt.

So many smiles coming up with Tarq and Pie.

And Tomas. Oh, the fun I will have with virgin Tomas out in the real world. Maybe not in book two, we’ll see if I can fit him in. But he was an unexpected delight.

If you’re wondering if this is a reverse harem, I’m not sure yet. I don’t know. I like all these characters. And Pie is a fun girl. And when Pie is uncomfortable, she’s the best. I plan on making her squirm and blush like crazy in book two.

I set this series up so that Pie has many choices. The sheriff will be back as well. I kinda went in to Monsters thinking it might be a little bit like the Sookie Stackhouse series (True Blood show on HBO, if you’re not familiar with the books). But Sookie Stackhouse was always solving mysteries, and Monsters won’t be a “mystery” series. Still, Sookie had lots of love interests and I want Pie to have the “full experience” too.

Also, another interesting note. I am an avid YA reader. I love young-adult fantasy/urban fantasy and science fiction. And there has been a rise in popularity in ancient Roman gods and goddesses in the YA world recently. I didn’t really plan on making Pell from Ancient Rome, it just kinda happened. But now that it’s part of the story, I’m excited to see what the old gods and goddesses are up to.

So I guess that’s it for this End of Book Shit. I hope you enjoyed this new story. I hope it didn’t stress you out. :) It wasn’t meant to stress you out. It’s just fun.

My next book releases August 31, 2021 – Vic Vaughn is Vicious. Yes, that Vic Vaughn of Sick Boyz Inc. fame. It’s so fun. So cute. And I know I do not normally write cute—my books are a lesson in mind-fucking almost every single time. But there is no mind-fuck in Vicious. It’s just a sexy rom-com.

I’m also writing two “vellas” for Amazon Vella. Have you heard of it? It’s serialized fiction like the stories on platforms such as Radish and Wattpad. I don’t expect any of you to give a single fuck about these two serials BUT if you’re curious – that’s where that “Vampire Story” will end up. And I have Cyborg Romance I’m going to put up on there too. (No, he will not have two dicks.)

I don’t know when that whole “Vella” thing will go live—Amazon tells us nothing. We are but mere content creators. But I think it might be live by the time this book releases.

Who knows? Just wanted to let you know that was coming if you’re interested.

Also, I’m only writing stories for Vella for fun.

That’s my new goal in life.

Have fun.

You might want to make it your goal too.

Thank you for reading, thank you for reviewing, and I’ll see you in the next book!

Julie

JA Huss

May 18, 2021

TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK TWO…

SAVAGE SAINTS

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