Check out this Turkish ad for DIE FOR ME. Google translates it as “Before there were vampires, there were zombies. And now they’re back.”

LOVE IT!

And extra-love Larger-Than-Life Turkish Kate:

The thing is…I think it would look so much better in real life. *plans trip to Turkey* *I wish!*

I know that my presence on FB and Twitter have been spotty lately. But let me tell you what’s been going on!

I had an awesome Paris event at WH Smith with Claire Merle, author of THE GLIMPSE. (Thanks to all for showing up and being so enthusiastic!)

and then I had an event at the oh-so-cool Goth Parisian bookstore, l’Antre Monde (very suitably located next to Pere Lachaise cemetery):

Signing at l'Antre Monde (photo: auboudoirecarlate)

Hard at work signing books (I love my job!) (photo: auboudoirecarlate)

(For blogger accounts of that event see Au Boudoir Ecarlate & Love of Book).

During that signing, someone asked if I would be doing other Paris events, and I responded that actually, yes, I was trying to set up an event for several YA authors in Paris in September. I was begged to reveal the names, but refrained since 1. the event wasn’t 100% confirmed with my chosen location (Virgin Megastore) and 2. I had promised Francoise the scoop (since she’s the one who answers all of my YA France questions, like…”If I were going to plan a multi-author event in Paris, where would it be?”).

Then Yael, the most amazing bookstore employee EVER, showed up, said that she would ENSURE that the event happened at Virgin…and at 11pm THAT NIGHT, she sent me an email saying it was a done deal. (I suspect she called her boss at home. She will evermore be my superhero.)

I leaked the news to Francesca the next day, and within 45 minutes, this had shown up on AuBoudoirEcarlate’s blog:

Blogger-created ad for September's event. (by the oh-so-talented AuBoudoirEcarlate)

So the cat was out of the bag almost as quickly as I jammed it in there, and I wrote my three author friends who I had been plotting with for weeks to say, “Oh, guess what. We’ve got our event at Virgin. And all of Paris knows about it.” Luckily, they are all three very laid back and did not come over to personally strangle me.

So…that’s another thing I’ve been doing: planning a 1-week “workshop” in September with Josphine Angelini, Tara Hudson, and Anna Carey, in which we hang out and write in the French countryside for a few days and then venture to Paris for this mega-event (and maybe a bit of shopping).

I’ve been working on the extras for the UNTIL I DIE paperback, and believe you me, you WANT THOSE EXTRAS. As in Vincent POV kind of wanting them.

I have been planning my trip to the Edinburgh Book Festival, and got so excited about all of the amazing authors there are to see, that I tacked another week onto my visit and am now going for the 2nd and 4th weeks of August! (And might actually get to see my True Love, but will not reveal his identity until I hear I have successfully procured a ticket.) Yes, if you are there, you may buy me a pint. Although I already have a pub date with Suzanne Winnacker, I’m sure I can fit you in. 🙂

I’ve also been busy with my move to Paris, where I am now living full-time. I was reminded last week, after hearing of the death of one of my idols, Nora Ephron, of what she said about moving to New York:

“I’d spent those sixteen years imagining what New York was going to be like. I thought it was going to be the most exciting, magical, fraught-with-possibility place that you could ever live in…” “…a place where I’d be surrounded by people I was dying to be with. And I turned out to be right.”

I totally agree with her about New York. But I have a similar view of Paris. I mean, how can’t you love it when your dentist not only BELIEVES IN CLEANING TEETH (*cough* French countryside *cough*), but has published two chic-lit books and, while scheduling your next appointment, invites you to a literary evening? I left his office with sparkly clean teeth and a date with a bunch of French writers. Only in Paris, non?

Yesterday’s CONTEST MONDAY piggybacked on my last post about the signum bardia. Based on the reasoning behind my symbolism and design of the sign of the “good guys”, I asked participants to tell me what they felt the sign of the bad guys would look like: a signum numa.

And I got so many amazing answers (just take a look in the comments here).

This was a VERY hard contest to judge. All of your ideas were great. A few were RIGHT ON.

What I ended up doing is choosing a few runners-up who really understood what a numa was and had interesting proposals for their signum. Those people will receive a signed paper UNTIL I DIE bookmark. They are (including the number of the comment): 5. Dominique Goodall, 17. Maggie, 23. Shelby von Wahl, 33. Dalitza Morales.

Kari James gets “best writing” – holy cow, girl. Your description was beautiful! You get an Eiffel Tower bookmark.

And for totally understanding the numa and proposing a signum that looked great when I attempted to draw it, the grand prize winners are Natalie Parker and Chrisoula Popaioannou. You both get an Eiffel Tower bookmark as well as signed paper DIE FOR ME and UNTIL I DIE bookmarks.

Here are the two winning entries, which I can actually imagine being COMBINED to make an awesome signum numa. (Maybe next week’s contest will be who can best draw it!)

Natalie Parker

Signum Numa, the twin of the Bardia:
A round disc the size of a dollar, of grey metal. The outer edge depicts a continuous serpent biting it’s own tail, with scale detail. In the top centre of the disk is a smooth Black triangle stone. This triangle forms an upper part of the letter ‘A’ with a deep groove lines at the triangles border reaching to the outer edges of the disc.
The bottom of the coin between the lines of the bottom part of the ‘A’ is fire.

“A” the Anarchy sign for demonic forces and suicide.
The colour black is used for death and mourning. Black is associated with the underworld and evil.
The Triangle and the fire element is the same reference as the Bardia of the three days of dormancy, and the descruction of Revenants.
The Grey round disk to represent the roman shield, where Numa are linked.
The serpent biting its own tail represents eternity and the cycles or “circle of life” the re-birth and in the Bible it usually represents sin, temptation, destruction, and Satan.
The circle – Infinity.
This is representing the cycle of life and Death – Revenants – the Numa.

Chrisoula Papaioannou

The signum numa should definitely be on a gold chain (gold representing supreme power). What I imagined it would look like: A gold snake biting its tail to form a ring a symbol of eternity. Its eyes would be red rubies (for blood),from the ring of the snake to the center would be a beautiful spider web. The web representing how they (the numa) deceive their victims by their beauty. Right in the center of the web would be a black diamond which stands for death!

WOW! I kind of want one of those! 🙂

All winners – send me your mailing address by email! And thanks to EVERYONE for participating!

I’ve had so many questions about the signum bardia that I thought I would show you some pictures of what I based it on and give you an idea of the mythology behind it.

In the book, I wanted Vincent to give Kate something to show she is under the protection of the revenants. As Vincent explains it (UNTIL I DIE, Chapter 23): “It’s a signum bardia. A signal to revenants that you are attached to us. That you know what we are and can be trusted.”

Kate’s signum comes in handy when she meets Gwenhaël, of course, and you’ll see even more signums in Book 3.

So what is a signum bardia? It’s…um…something I made up. The Latin word “signum” means: “sign, seal, mark, token.” And I chose the term “bardia” for the good revenants because it means “watch” or “shift” in Greek. As in the watching over of humans that our bardia specialize in…the shifts they take walking together in threes (2 + 1 volant).

So a signum bardia is the mark of the bardia—their token.

Once I had the term I wanted, I had to decide what symbolism it should hold.

First I thought of self-sacrifice, and used the medieval image of the pelican piercing its breast to feed its young with its blood. Um…yeah. That’s my geeky art historian side coming out. I wish I still had my first attempt at drawing it. It looked more like an epileptic swan than this:

Pelican piercing his breast from a 16th century bestiary

or this:

Pelican piercing its breast from medieval heraldry

You did know I’m a medievalist, right? Well, now you do. (By the way, that’s a very good thing to say at a party if you don’t want anyone to talk to you. And then you can bring up the subject of pelican blood, and people will literally flee. Just sayin’…)

Back to subject. The pelican was too hard for me to draw, much less for me to describe over and over. So I went for simple. What easy shapes can communicate a message? I’ll let Vincent describe what I came up with:

“…the pyramid is supposed to mean life after death, and its three corners signify our three days of dormancy. The flames represent our aura and the only way we can be destroyed. And the circle is immortality.”

While I was coming up with the symbolism, I had this ring in mind:

9th century Byzantine ring with cabochon sapphire. (Cabochon means it's smooth instead of cut and faceted like most jewels are.)

I thought if I made the sapphire into a triangle, that would be a good start. But I wanted more. So I perused a few of my books on ancient jewelry (see…I told you…certified geek) and I found this:

Ancient Greek earring (around 350 BCE)

Close-up of the upper part of the earring

It has the same double border of gold pellets as the ring, but also decorative swirls inside the circle that could be made into flames. If you put a triangular sapphire right in the middle, it would be perfect.

So I waved my magic author wand, mixed the two pieces of jewelry and added some flames and it came out like this:

“It was a gold disk the size of a dollar coin, and it was edged with two circles of tiny gold pellets, one nestled within the other. Set in the center of the disk was a dark blue triangular stone with a smooth, slightly rounded surface. And in the space between the stone and the rows of pellets were decorative gold wires curved into the shape of flames. It looked ancient, like the Greek jewelry in Papy’s gallery.”

As for Kate’s signum’s history, I let Vincent describe it thus:

“…the treasury belongs to France’s revenants. The pieces have been passed down for millennia. This one is logged into our records as last being used by one of our emissaries to Constantinople in the ninth century.”

But, for me, as beautiful and priceless as the signum itself, was Vincent’s motivation to give it to Kate:

“This isn’t just from me to you. It is from all of us to you. I saw how upset you were when Arthur said you weren’t one of us. I want you to know that you aren’t an outsider. You aren’t a revenant, but you are still one of us. This signum means that you are kindred.”

Check out the cover for UNTIL I DIE in Bulgaria! Is it gorgeous or what?

(Okay, Kate has bleached her hair, but it’s so beautiful I almost didn’t notice.)

It’s out on the 25th and you can see more about it here!