Category Archives: Updates

Cover Reveal Day!!

We’ve all been waiting eagerly for this day for over a month!! Today you’re going to get the first look at the amazing cover created by Nevi & Dani together — the first that we’ve done together. Up til now, we’ve always had one or the other of us using our different art skills to create a cover for our stories. But then we had the brilliant idea to combine our artistic powers the same way that we do with our writing and the results are so crazy good that we can hardly believe them!!

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From the Best-selling Authors of the Parliament of Twilight series comes a new erotic world of Heroes and Villains where the difference between good and evil isn’t as simple as which side you’re on.

 

53 year old Matt Evans never thought he would be drawn back into the world of the Chosen and their staged battles of Good versus Evil. But with the return of his long dormant super powers on the heels of a devastating attack on the Chosen, Matt is forced to come face to face with the lover he left behind.

When Professor Colton Stephens sees Matt again, all of the pain of their past is brought to the surface. Thirty years of secrets and heartbreak must be overcome so that they can work together against the plotting of a Hero who turned into a terrorist.

When that terrorist uses Colton’s powers and proclivities against him, will his bond with Matt be strong enough to keep him out of the grip of Evil, or will Colton fall into the clutches of the first truly evil being in the known history of the Chosen?

 

And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for!!

 

Burnouts Cover 01 eBook

 

Pre-order links are Now Live for

Back Issues (Burn Outs #1)!

** Amazon   **  Smashwords  **  Barnes & Noble   **  KoBo   **  Google Books (play store)  **

 

What the #@$& am I Looking At??

After a busy, busy week around the house, we really need to drop some updates!

Firstly, the first book in the Parliament of Twilight series is back in the top 20 for LGBT Horror.

ep 1 top 20 lgbt horror - 1-19-18

And that’s super, duper exciting after our feature on Queer Sci Fi earlier this week.

In addition to that (and only sort of related to our books but still awesome), Nevi has been working with a new art technique and it’s turned out some amazing results. You can see the first of them on her Deviant Art page.

For those of you who are hoping that we’ll drop some more things for you to spend money on, there is our Patreon page. We’re working on some exclusive content that will (fingers crossed) drop around the end of February and you’ll be the first in the know about our upcoming releases, get sneak peeks at the new covers as they are designed, and exclusive looks between the covers of the Parliament of Twilight books. Also, free eBooks of all our new releases for anyone who donates $5 or more per month.

And I thought there’d be more to talk about, but editing is pretty boring. It’s mostly me staring at words and praying they make sense outside of my head.

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New Venues

We’ve been hard at work this weekend, doing some updates to the website. You’ll find the biggest changes over on our “About the Parliament of Twilight” page.  We’ve changed that up quite a bit to better explain the world and format of the books.

EBOOK episode 1 full wrap cover VER2Our re-launch of the Parliament of Twilight: Episode 1 with the shiny new cover has been going well. Most of the sites where we have profiles and where we sell the books have been updated. We’re just waiting for the distribution channels at Smashwords to send it out to Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and a few other sites. By the end of the week, the new cover should be everywhere!

In addition to our website, I’ve spent a good long time cleaning up and making our Patreon site beautiful. It’s looking really nice, with a banner from the new cover and some pretty cool rewards for our donors. We’re working on some exclusive content that should start going up sometime in late February/early March. For as little as $1 a month, you can get access to this content (and feel good about supporting a pair of hard working indie authors and their cats!)

We’ve also launched our books on a new platform, the Google Play store! All 4 Parliament of Twilight books are currently available for download to your Android device. Hopefully, this will bring us to a whole new set of people eager for what we have to offer!

 

Evolution

For those of you who have been following along since we began publishing the Parliament of Twilight books in early 2013, you’ve seen quite the evolution of our book covers. You know that I have always designed the covers. And those first covers were drawn by my writing partner Nevi and put into cover templates I “designed”.

They were lovely but the large paintings didn’t translate well to thumbnails and they certainly didn’t appeal to audiences who were willing to throw money at us.

 

So, I went to work redesigning the covers to meet the expectations of our intended market. And they were….. well…..

They were what they were. Not bad, but desperately trying to cater to a very specific audience in the M/M Romance genre while still making a valiant attempt to keep the horror element that runs through the world was hard. Sort of got it, but not really.

Our long time fans (all three of you) will also recall that the books themselves had a fatal flaw. We were writing stories meant to eventually overlap, but each story line was taking place at three different places on the time line. With overlapping secondary characters. It was getting impossible for us as the authors to keep the stories straight and I don’t even know how the handful of readers we had would have managed if our original plan of 3 or 4 books in each story arc had played out.

We did the only thing we thought we could. We re-branded, changing our label name from Wandering Stars Press (which was also the name of a comic book company anyway and was really messing up our  Google search results) to Hermit & Star Books. And we took the stories that we already had, fit them onto a single time line and began writing the missing pieces to thread them together and give more life to the secondary characters who were the backbone of the over all plot.

What came out of this re-do was the ensemble cast that we all know and love today. The stories made sense, the time line was smoothed out, and we were writing at a record pace. But the new books needed new covers. So I put myself through the process of learning a new set of tools. Something more than a photo editor and GIMP.

And they turned out beautifully. With amazing characters on dynamic backgrounds. The response from our readers was awesome. We’re not NYT best-sellers, but we’re regularly in the top 50 for LGBT Horror, so that’s something. And we make a few sales every month, earning enough for a cup of coffee or two.

But there was something off about the Episode 1 cover. Something that made it look out of place next to the other ones.

It was the first. I have learned many, many more tricks to making amazing renders, the program I use (DAZ Studio 3D) has been updated several times. I’ve found hours of tutorials for making my final products amazing.

After dealing with this for almost 3 years (Episode 1 released in late Feb 2015), I finally broke down and did what I swore I wasn’t going to do. I risked the endless cycle of fixing and redoing my past work to take it that elusive place called Perfection. I sat down and redid the cover from scratch. New character design for Jacob. New background. Updating the font and graphics to match the other books.

Then this …

episode 1 full wrap cover

Which wasn’t BAD, but it certainly wasn’t good either. It became something else. Something new and amazing. It became this…..

Copy of episode 1 full wrap cover VER2

 

And I am so much, much happier. I am in love with this cover. So much in love.

And  by the end of the weekend, this new amazingness should be posted on every site where our books are sold.

Get in on this Pre-order

After over a year of re-writes, edits, full-stop plot holes, and feral chupacabra attacks, Parliament of Twilight: Episode 4 is ready for the public!

ep 4 cover Kindle smaller
The men of the Parliament will be forced to discover what they are made of whilst facing Demons and the truth of the internal workings of the Parliament of Twilight itself. 

 

Officially releasing in eBook on December 18th, you can now pre-order it on either Amazon or Smashwords. Also, if you are a paperback lover, Amazon has it available now.  (And for our fans who are outside the US, you want these links for the ebook or the paperback.)

In addition to the excitement of the pre-order, we are also running a giveaway from now until the release date on the 18th. Easy to enter, easy to win spiffy prizes.

And now, back to the writer cave to work on the preparations for Episode 5! Hoping that we will be seeing the release on 5 around April or May 2018. *fingers crossed*

PS- how could I forget the free stuff? If you want to get a copy of Parliament of Twilight: Episode 1 (as well as a few other really cool books) hop over to this post on Facebook and sign up for the Queeromance Ink newsletter. Details on how to get this super cool Paranormal LGBT pack of free stuff is in the post, but trust me. It’s easy and all you need is an email.

 

Please Pardon Our Dust

After a very long year of emotional and dramatic events (not the least of which was our roommate’s Myke’s near death experience), I have begun to really dig into our publishing business. The first step is going to be an overhaul of our website, which has already begun and will continue over the next couple weeks as I sort out what’s what. Please have patience as pages appear and disappear, links might be broken, and I could be weeping in the corner.

Just leave a bit of chocolate and walk away slowly. I’m sure I’ll be fine. Probably.

We are deeply entrenched in the final editing stages for the next Parliament of Twilight book. Actually, there are 3 coming down the pipes in the next 9 to 10 months. Episode 4 is about to visit with its new editor, so that’s not long in the future. Five is in the early stages of editing, and we’re nearly done with the almost final draft of 6. Now that we’re not bogged down by depression, drama, illness (by the way, Nevi is back on her feet after a month of pure hell sickness), and other distracting shenanigans, we have hours more every day that we can devote to our work that were lost.

We are hoping to have a Patreon account up and running by the end of the month, because as independent authors, we could always use a little boost in the wallet. And as readers, you could always use a little exclusive content.

As we move forward, there are projects other than the Parliament of Twilight we are hoping to be able to share. Nevi and I have both started (and even almost nearly finished) solo projects. There is a space opera trilogy we’ve been working on together. There are a few stand alone projects we are keeping on the back burner (maybe to be brought out during NaNoWriMo to give us a break from the high intensity Parliament drama.) In other words, we expect to be kept busy with lots and lots of writing stuff for the foreseeable future.

Keep your eyes on the blog for announcements, maybe a few excerpts from upcoming releases, and some randomness from Nevi and I when we can sneak away from the sweatshop of words that our living room has become!

~~Dani H.

Fall in Love with the Parliament of Twilight series

As part of the Valentine’s blog hop brought to us by the lovely Nicki J Markus, I’m going to talk a little bit about the Parliament of Twilight series.

 

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What is the Parliament of Twilight?  Well, it started as several different LGBT-centric series that were loosely tied together in the same world. But that didn’t work out. There was far too much overlap to keep the writing straight (never was any hope for keeping those characters straight, LOL). Nevi and I were straining ourselves to build the world and plots in a way that kept everything making sense. But when you have 3 storylines with the potential for more, all running concurrently, it makes for a mess.

So, from the ashes rose the new idea of just lumping it all together and being able to fill out everyone’s stories in one continuous series. We couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. The main three couples are still working their messes out (but what romances are messy at the beginning?), but the background story of the shady organization of the Parliament of Twilight is intact and flows beautifully.

When people ask us how long the series is going to be, the best answer we can give is that it will be as long as it needs to be to tell the wholestory. But the rough estimate that we can give with how much we’ve told in the nearly 7 episodes we’ve written is that in the area of 25 volumes should cover the complicated main story arc as well as leaving space for the main cast to get their happy endings. And yes, despite what you might believe from reading the first few episodes, we do intend for almost all the cast to have happy endings.

It’s a daunting task, writing something that by its very nature is so long, but we’re so very excited about the story and the characters. There’s a flavor for every taste.

You like cute little twinks, we have Brodie and Chip. Into the older hot men? There’s RT, his twin Quentin, and Jacob (but don’t tell him we said he was “older”!) Cross-dressers? We’ve got Stefan. Bisexuals? There’s a few of those too. Red-heads, blonds, guys with accents. Whatever you want, I’m sure we can find it for you within the pages of this far-reaching series.

We frequently refer to this series as being “yaoi and/or anime inspired” because it is, to a spectacular degree. We have some very ridiculous, over the top scenes. The story lines are beset with misunderstandings, super powers, vampires, evil organizations, redemption, betrayal, laughter and tears. It’s melodramatic and shameless. It’s sexy and dangerous. There are monsters everywhere, but you can never tell if it’s the creature with the teeth and claws or the beautiful man at your side.

It’s everything we love scribbled down in black and white.

We’ve had a blast writing it so far, and hope you enjoy reading it just as much. Enjoy!

And once you’ve indulged in all things Parliament, pop back over to this post on Nicki Markus’s blog to see the other awesome authors who are in the blog hop!

14-feb2017

A Picture’s Worth

Malachite and Marius
Just one of the ten amazing pictures that will be in the Parliament of Twilight Episode 2 Illustrated Edition!!

Finished the formatting for the paperback version of Parliament of Twilight Episode 2 tonight!  And the cover is looking super nice as well.  It just needs a few little tweaks.  We will probably be ready to order a proof copy by the end of the weekend.  The eBook format will take a little longer, since it is really tricky getting the pictures in just right.  We should have an official release date anytime now!

Also, while we are talking about the pictures, in the coming weeks, we will be updating our Zazzle and Etsy stores to include several different ways you can get full color versions of some of the illustrations.  Stay tuned for more info about that.

Is there one that you are particularly fond of?  Let me know via Facebook message or email at hermitstarbooks@outlook.com and I’ll pass the message on to Nevi so she knows which of the illustrations people want to see in color!  There are also some fanart and original pieces already available at our stores!  Don’t be shy about checking them out.  Every like, share, and of course, every sale, is greatly appreciated!

Pre-Order Links!

I’m very excited to announce that that pre-order for the eBook of Parliament of Twilight: Episode 2 is available on Smashwords!  There is still some processing to be done, but it will be available on Amazon for pre-order as well in the next day or so.  Still need your copy of Episode 1?  Check out our links here for your favorite supplier of either eBook or Print editions.

ebook cover ep2

Parliament of Twilight: Episode 2

Release Date: May 5th, 2015

Available on Smashwords, Amazon (link now live!)

Summary:

When faced with terror and assassination attempts, the men of the Parliament of Twilight must show what they are made of.

Will Brodie be able to save himself from the very real horrors of a haunted house on the fake ghost hunting show? What about the wheelchair bound assassin known as Night Owl? What is he going to do with this new partner and a mission that could prove to be impossible? Can Julian find a way to feed his demanding nature that doesn’t involve Marius smuggling prostitutes into the hospital?

And what about RT’s new romance with the much younger Kayden Miles? Will Kayden’s father prove to be their undoing or the least of their worries?

The next installment of the Parliament of Twilight series delivers mortal peril, real demons, internet porn, and the beginnings of young love. More questions are asked than answered, but these boys are just getting warmed up!

EDITED to add Amazon pre-order link.

Episode 2 Cover Reveal!!

It’s finally here!  The cover for the Parliament of Twilight: Episode 2!  But first, have you picked up your copy of Episode 1?  No?  Well stop reading right now and head over to our shopping page to get your copy from your favorite online dealer.

Got it?  Good.  Now, on to Episode 2!

Summary:

When faced with terror and assassination attempts, the men of the Parliament of Twilight must show what they are made of.

Will Brodie be able to save himself from the very real horrors of a haunted house on the fake ghost hunting show?  What about the wheelchair bound assassin known as Night Owl?  What is he going to do with this new partner and a mission that could prove to be impossible?  Can Julian find a way to feed his demanding nature that doesn’t involve Marius smuggling prostitutes into the hospital?

And what about RT’s new romance with the much younger Kayden Miles?  Will Kayden’s father prove to be their undoing or the least of their worries?

The next installment of the Parliament of Twilight series delivers mortal peril, real demons, internet porn, and the beginnings of young love.  More questions are asked than answered, but these boys are just getting warmed up!

Do you like the sound of that?  I hope so, because that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  These boys really know how to get themselves into trouble.  There are plans for at least 9 episodes in the series and we are 100% certain that they won’t be done even then!

But, you’re not here to listen to to go on and on about the far flung future of the Parliament of Twilight.  You want this sexy cover with pivotal character RT Wilmont, don’t you?  Well, here it is!  Enjoy!

ebook cover ep2

And the full wrap version as well….

full wrap cover ep 2

Pre-order links to come very, very soon!  Official release date TBA.