February 5, 2023

Love is in the air...

When I was a kid, I never thought I’d count ‘internet access’ as a basic need like water, electricity, and heat. The past two months we’ve been dealing with intermittent internet that is, now, finally fixed and life is so much easier with reliable connectivity.

Living rural has a lot of benefits - and a lot that is a detriment. Lousy internet was one of them. I still can’t get food delivered, but as the town grows, that’s becoming more likely.

full moon over the Blue Ridge mountains

Having internet access is vital to being an indie author. Managing uploads, book sales, marketing - that’s all done with ‘net access. Now that it’s more reliable, I can relax into getting things done and not worrying about whether I can get online or not.

That’s one of the reasons I set up a substack for my newsletter. It’s not just a new way of delivering my newsletter, but a different mindset for the content of the newsletter. I feel like I can be more conversational with this since there’s a comment/reply option below and my newsletters are less junk mail/advertisement and more of a ‘hey, this is what’s going on and what I’m working on’ conversation.

A reader emailed me and asked why Substack over Patreon? Substack is more of a writer’s culture and Patreon has made some noise about censoring things and I’m not about that. Do some authors do great on Patreon? Yeah, of course - but I just didn’t like it as much as I like Substack.
They also asked “I looked at subscribing. What are the differences in what you get? It all looks the same whether I spend 60 or 100.”
Well, yeah - it’s the same if you pay for a subscription, no matter the level - for now. I’m hoping to be able to offer better discounts, different content, etc - but right now I’m still working on creating content and getting stories out. It’s more of a case of where $60 will get you the extra goodies, but if you really want to help out, you can give more.

As to what I’m working on - Knight is in process - the second book in the Chess Club series. I’m also working on a couple of novellas - one for the Monster Hunter anthology and one for the Rejected by the Immortal anthology. Those two are in a new world called “Immortal Bloodlines”, a world you’ll be seeing a lot more of this year and through 2025.

I’ve also got a secret surprise thing I’m working on - a series of novellas, co-written with Mariah Thayer. They’ll be out later this year - a story with intrigue, ghosts, psychics, and steamy romance - The Ghost-Talker series.

As always, if you subscribe to the substack, it helps me out and if you want to support me, you can do a paid subscription and get access to pieces of the works in progress and special promos.

Hope you’re staying warm!

Ryker McCabe: Give me a room full of armed hostiles and I know exactly what to do. But a head full of memories? There's no evasion plan for those. Sit rep: I let my team down and nearly got us all killed.
I’m no coward. But I’m going dark. Back to Boston to exorcise a demon. Instead, I run into a woman being chased by her own. A jade-eyed redhead as soft and tiny as I am hard and rough. With a mouth made for sass, the heart of a fighter—and a potentially deadly problem. On His Six by Patricia D. Eddy

Do you love finding clues, solving a mystery, and falling in love?
If you love a small town, second-chance romance stories layered with emotion, suspense, and two people willing to risk it all for love, escape to Elkridge, a town filled with everyday heroes, and find the one person who's hiding a secret.
Blinded - by Lyz Kelley

What does he have to do to convince her?
Their first meeting is like mixing oil with water. They are strong, opinionated, driven and they both think they are right. The chemistry is instantaneous, a surprise to them both, and they discover that work might not be the only thing they have in common. The only problem is Max has a very big secret that he doesn’t want to share…

Tears of the Queen - by Bethany Drake

These two books below are part of a Round Robin sharing I’m doing all year. Every month you’ll be introduced to two new authors with stories you’re bound to enjoy.

Hey there! This is where the paid subscriber content lies.
You saw up above that I’m co-writing with Mariah Thayer on a new series? Well, this is a snippet of that series.

Please forgive any editing issues, it has NOT seen the editor yet…

CHAPTER ONE:
Van rolled over and stared at the time displayed on her cellphone. Six twenty-six in the morning. The exact time the doctor called Marcus’ death, one year, ten months, and eleven days ago.

She wasn’t sure what had awakened her this morning. Sometimes it was a nightmare of what happened, sometimes it was the feeling of his arms around her, and she’d wake and find herself alone in their big bed. She’d taken to sleeping diagonally across the queen sized mattress because it felt less empty that way.

Barefoot, she padded across the hardwood floors and into the bathroom. Her dark eyes were shadowed so much it looked like she’d been punched in the face. Her Cajun and Black ancestry gave her tanned skin, hazel-brown eyes and wavy black hair that she’d cropped so short it stayed straight in the ragged pixie cut she wore. A liberal application of concealer would make her publicly acceptable, but for now she splashed water on her face and went to find her coffee pot.

Her apartment was small, but it had everything she needed. A functioning bathroom, a kitchen she barely used, and a main room that held her bed, a loveseat, and a table she’d made into her workspace with a rolling desk chair that creaked when she sat in it.  Tall windows let in the light when she opened the blinds, and exposed brick along one wall gave the space some character.

Van hadn’t bothered hanging up any art, keeping any plants, or unpacking much of anything. Most of the contents of her Seattle condo still sat in storage, and as far as Van was concerned, it could stay there for the next decade. She didn’t have the bandwidth to go through the belongings she and Marcus had collected over their twelve years together.

The one picture in the place was one of Van and Marcus, laughing as they embraced at a friend’s wedding. The framed photo sat on the island between the kitchen and the main living space where she could see it from every angle of the room. Van traced a fingertip along the image’s jaw and sighed, then turned to pour herself a cup of coffee. She wore one of Marcus’ shirts as a nightshirt, and the hem fluttered around mid-thigh as she sank into the desk chair and tucked one foot up under herself. The sun was pushing through the morning clouds as Van sipped. Every time she woke from one of those dreams, she tried to follow Dr. Hadley’s advice and sort out the reality from the dream’s fantasy.

Dr. Annelise Hadley, as far as Van was concerned, saved her life. Her wisdom and understanding had helped guide Van out of the darkest place she’d ever been. They’d met in August, two months after everything imploded.

The night she’d lost everything.