Emily Colin's Blog

I'm so thrilled to be part of this anthology, which features 150+ romance authors and benefits reproductive rights. I've got a never-before-seen short story in here, featuring a man with a secret, a woman who won't give up on searching for her lost mom, and an unlikely love story.

Dissent: A Charity Romance Anthology

Shadows of the Seven Sins by Emily Colin




Here's a little teaser excerpt from one of the short stories from my upcoming collection, SHADOWS OF THE SEVEN SINS, set in the universe of my Seven Sins series. I'll be sharing some more excerpts from the book as we get closer to release date, so stay tuned!

“Lean on me, Kilían. We can do this,” Kennett whispered as they went. “Remember, ‘the race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong.’” These were the words that the Mothers read to them each night, along with the parables of the sins that had led to the Empire’s Fall.

Kilían bit his lip so hard it bled, trying hard not to let his reaction show. To contradict the Mothers when they spoke of such things was heresy—but he believed these words to be lies. Perhaps they held true for the Commonwealth’s citizens at large, but certainly not for the bellators whose ranks he aspired to join. “There are many kinds of strength,” he whispered back.

It was a simple statement—but when Kennett’s hand tightened on his waist, he imagined that perhaps the other boy was reveling in the sensation of this unexpected intimacy, just as he was. For the ninety seconds it took for them to reach the finish line, he let himself imagine things that were beyond verboten: lying in the meadow beyond the vineyards with Kennett, his head on the other boy’s chest, looking up at the clouds that drifted across the sky; pressing a kiss to Kennett’s lips under the watchful eye of the sickle moon.

Something was terribly wrong with him. Kissing was forbidden, let alone kissing another boy. Not that it mattered who you kissed, he supposed; getting caught doing it only ended one way: on your knees in Clockverk Square, with your neck bared for a bellator’s sverd.

Kilían had always expected to be the one wielding the blade. He had no plans to find himself on the receiving end.

Shadows of the Seven Sins




View all my reviews

A Stitch in Time by Kelley Armstrong

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I am a huge fan of Kelley Armstrong. There's just something about her writing that appeals to me on a visceral level--whether it's her Otherworld or Rockton series, her YA books, or something entirely new. When I delved into A Stitch in Time, recommended to me by a fellow author, I discovered that this particular book has so many things I adore: a creepy setting, more than a hint of the paranormal, an impossible love, and an ending that satisfied me deeply. I looked at the copyright page and discovered this is one of Armstrong's indie titles, which made me even happier--some extraordinarily talented authors are pursuing a hybrid model right now and I think it goes a long way toward removing any remaining stigma around indie publishing. I'm so glad this is just Book 1 in a series!



View all my reviews

I have a confession to make.

For the past six months—other than research for my upcoming novel—I’ve almost exclusively read young adult lit: Tahereh Mafi, Michelle Hodkin, Sally Green, Rick Yancey, Marie Lu, John Green, Cassandra Clare, Jandy Nelson, Maggie Stiefvater, Julie Kagawa. I’ve revisited old favorites, sure, but other than purchasing the capstone book in a series I’ve followed for years, my library and bookstore acquisitions have been confined to YA.

I broke my fast this past weekend with All the Missing Girls, by Megan Miranda—a YA author making her first foray into the world of adult fiction. Really, I couldn’t help it. The haunting, evocative cover snagged my eye, and before I knew it I was marching up to the counter with a hardcover in my hand. I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover and all that—but in this case, I am so, so glad I did.

The first thing you need to know about All the Missing Girls is that it’s a thriller, with a tightly woven plot and a main character that is as charismatic as she is flawed. The second thing you need to know is that the story is told in reverse—starting at day 15 and winding its inexorable way backward to day 1—a narrative device that disorients the reader even as it intensifies the sense of mystery and urgency that pervades every page.

This is the story of Nicolette Farrell, a woman who fled the small Southern town of Cooley Ridge ten years ago, after her best friend, Corinne, vanished for good. She’s got a good job in Philadelphia, a fiancé, and a whole new life—but when she has to go home to take care of her ailing father, the past rises up to swallow her all over again. Everyone who was a suspect in Corrine’s disappearance is still living in Cooley Ridge—Nic’s brother Daniel, her ex-boyfriend Tyler, and Corrine’s ex, Jackson. So is Annaleise Carter, the girl who served as their alibi on the night that Corinne went missing. But when Annaleise herself disappears, Nic is forced to confront everything she left behind on that long-ago night—and figure out the truth about what really happened in Cooley Ridge.

Miranda’s writing is vivid, evoking a powerful sense of small-town claustrophobia and panic. The complex interpersonal relationships between her characters are well rendered, leaving the reader constantly off-balance, wondering how much weight to give a particular turn of phrase or an over-long look. No one in All The Missing Girls is blameless, with one potential exception. Everyone is implicated. No one escapes unscathed.

I got to the end of the book and promptly wanted to read it again—but backward this time, from day 1 to day 15, understanding everything in reverse—looking for clues, figuring out what I’d missed or misinterpreted the first time around. All the Missing Girls is a suspenseful, deftly crafted, adrenaline-inducing page turner of a novel. Read this one with the lights on.

I am thrilled beyond words to announce that Ballantine Books will publish my as-yet-untitled second novel in Summer 2017.

Right now, the book is in the revision phase with my editor, and we’re going back and forth, tightening it down—for those of you who know me well, it will come as no surprise that I tend to overwrite—and making it as good as it can possibly be. The manuscript was originally a bit of a behemoth (over 650 pages) so we’ve had a lot of tightening to do! But we’re nearing the end now, and I can’t wait to see the final product . . . sort of like watching a sculpture emerge from a hunk of clay.

A lot has happened since the 2012 release of The Memory Thief. In 2015, as I was working furiously to meet my deadline for Book 2, I got an email from my agent asking for my approval on a promotion for Memory Thief’s ebook. Caught up in the maelstrom of deadline madness, I absentmindedly agreed—and promptly forgot all about it, until I got a phone call one evening from my editor, letting me know that the ebook version of Memory Thief had squeaked its way onto the New York Times bestseller list. I was so shocked, I almost dropped the phone.

But that wasn’t all. A few weeks later, we heard from Tantor, a company that wanted to produce an audiobook version of Memory Thief. Now, this would be exciting under any circumstances, but it was especially awesome because—given the fact that it had been published three years prior—Memory Thief was officially a backlist title. And once a title becomes backlist, it’s fairly rare for an audiobook deal to come along. I was thrilled—and even more so to learn that the audiobook would be produced as an ensemble cast, with a different actor voicing each of my three narrators. The audiobook came out in February 2016, over four years after Memory Thief came into the world, and it’s just as fantastic as I’d hoped it would be.

Which brings me to Novel #2, an epic adventure that has taken me from the libraries and beaches of Barbados to coffeehouses and abandoned lighthouses off the coast of Charleston. I’ve spent time chatting with archaeologists amongst relics, and been a mixed martial arts dojo voyeur. I’ve read and researched and written, written, written. So much has gone into the creation of this book that it’s a little hard for me to believe that it’s actually coming to fruition. But it is, and I couldn’t be happier.

Here’s a sneak peek into what the book is all about—with photos and more on my website’s “In the Works” page. I’ll be updating my blog with cover and title reveals, as well as snippets from the book itself, so stay tuned!

When single mom and archaeologist Isabel Griffin gets an emergency phone call while on a dig in Barbados one day, her first thought is that something’s happened to her daughter, Finn—a little girl who doesn’t quite fit the norm. But when she answers the phone, the voice on the other end is the last one she expects to hear. The caller is her old boyfriend, Max—gone missing in the woods almost eight years ago and presumed dead, by everyone except Isabel. He only utters a single, mysterious sentence (“Keep her safe”) before they’re disconnected, and when Isabel tries to call him back, she’s met with the same automated message she’s been hearing for years—that the number she’s dialed is no longer in service.

Max is much more than just Isabel’s ex-boyfriend—he’s her childhood best friend and secret-keeper. He’s the one who was there for her after her mom’s unexplained disappearance fourteen years before and the only person who really understood the depth of her father’s obsession with finding his long-lost wife. And he’s Finn’s father—which Isabel had just told him the day before he vanished, less than fifty feet from the place where she was standing.

Isabel has already lost two of the people she loves the most, and she has no intention of losing Finn too. Evidence or no evidence, she is sure the phone call was from Max—and that it is a warning that her daughter is in danger. She searches in vain for a rational explanation, and finds none. But when Max begins appearing to her—in her room, on the flagstones of her backyard patio—then vanishing when she tries to talk to him, Isabel must determine whether she is losing her mind, or whether there is more to reality than she—a scientist—has ever been willing to acknowledge. She is determined to uncover the truth . . . but the more she learns about what really happened in the woods that day, the more she is forced to question all of her assumptions about love, courage and the nature of family.