Book Release

RELEASE DAY: The Bloody Throne

That’s right, my beloveds–the third and final Hostage to Empire book is officially out today!

The Bloody Throne

The great Zhaon empire is in turmoil. The emperor is dead and the crown prince has fallen to hidden schemes, leaving his most dangerous brother to assume the throne. The imperial court is seething, and whispers of war grow to shouts. The once-vanquished kingdom of Khir marches again to regain their honor, the savage Tabrak raid the borders after ravaging the South, and assassins lurk in the shadows seeking imperial favor. 

Komor Yala, her own position uncertain, finds shelter in marriage to the cunning Third Prince. But there is little safety in Zhaon. Death and destruction mount as a blood-drenched summer ends, and to the victor will be left an empire—if it is not turned to smoking ruins first. 

The wheel of destiny is turning, and all will be caught under its weight…

Now available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and independent bookstores.

The entire series has had a difficult path to publication–no book is easy, mind you, but some are a little more challenging than others. Plague, uncertainty, changes in the editing team, all sorts of outside events all conspired against the entire trilogy. I’m rather surprised to have reached this point, frankly. There were several times during the writing, let alone the production process, where I thought it couldn’t possibly be finished.

But, like all love songs, it managed to reach triumph in at least one way.

Release-day nerves have me firmly in their grip. A run might blunt the sharp edges, but only a little. I’ll be hard pressed to settle to any real work today; I might try my hand at a livestream around lunchtime if I can scrape together the energy and ignore the anxiety. (But don’t bet on it.)

There’s a certain sadness to seeing years of work–not just my own, but that of the editorial and production crews–come to fruition. Of course there’s a great deal of joy and relief, I’m just feeling the pangs of separation. The book (and the series) has to make its own way in the world now. Publishing means that I’m already working several books past the end of this one; it’s like seeing one’s past self encased in amber. If not for delayed gratification, there would be none at all in this industry.

Anyway, I’m halfway through my coffee and the office is quiet. So is the grey morning outside my window. The dogs have not yet started lobbying for me to make toast and get underway, so I suppose I’ll take a deep breath and enjoy the peace while I can.

Have a lovely Tuesday, my dears. See you around.

Something Indeed, Survival

Another mist-drenched morning. The dogs are very calm, probably because all the clouds come down to earth muffle extraneous neighborhood noise. Except, of course, the helicopter that nearly buzzed us last night. It sounded low enough to take off a few roofs. Both kids came out of their rooms, wondering what the hell; the dogs were anxious for a bit, glancing in my direction to see how they should take the event.

Wonder what was up with that. And I’m slightly amused by everyone looking at me to see if they should worry about an Unexpected Event. Of course, that’s part of the essence of motherhood–and there was the time I, as a chaperone, stood up on a bus of fourth-graders beginning to spool themselves up on a field trip and hissed, “When it is time to panic I will let you know.”

Peace was restored, the troublemakers in the back were model citizens for the rest of the ride, and I was much in demand for class trips after that.

So. It’s Thursday. The Marked is on sale, and Sons of Ymre #1 is due for release later this month. Which means my own brand of panic will be in full bloom; release days always put me in a state. So far, February’s been an…interesting month. January seemed to last forever; this particular calendar-division isn’t far behind. I keep saying, “You know, last year…? I think?” and one of the kids will say, “Mum, that was last week.”

I mean, I’ve known all my life time is subjective, but this is ridiculous.

Perhaps some of the slipperiness of the fourth dimension lately comes from a certain form of completely accidental vengeance. The thing about time, and about surviving, is that sooner or later one outlasts a few things. Say, for example, that the Universe serves up a great deal of karma to someone who tormented you mercilessly when you were young and therefore temporarily helpless. (Though when you’re under eighteen and trapped it doesn’t feel temporary. Far from.)

Now, self-satisfied social mores might bleat that one isn’t supposed to feel any satisfaction from such an event, especially if one was born female and ruthlessly battered into being a polite, perfect victim because that serves the interest of entrenched powers. But watching karma (also known as “consequences”) come around the mountain like a freight train to paste a long-ago abuser is…well, it’s something.

It’s something indeed.

So time has lost most of its meaning, I’m enjoying my coffee on a quiet morning, and every once in a while the thought, “Huh, I survived,” drifts through the warp and weft of my concentration. For most of my life I never even compassed that I might. My own survival was invisible, because it did not occur to me that it was possible. And now I’m here.

I suppose I could always be so calm in disasters because I assumed I was already dead and most of my “life” was just marking time waiting for the cosmos to notice and update the paperwork. As a coping mechanism, was it ideal? Hardly. Useful? Very. Effective? In various ways, yes.

And now, in this the third year of pandemic, I look out my office window to see the fog pressing between cedars. I listen to the dogs breathe as they wait, half-napping, for morning walkies. If this is a victory, it’s a quiet one. The plague might still get me, and if it doesn’t the ongoing fascist coup (what, you thought that was over? Ha!) probably will. But I’ve lived long enough to see the muscled arm of cosmic consequence administer a well-deserved bitchslap, and I didn’t have to lift a finger.

At the moment, it’s enough. And my coffee, sipped slowly, tastes very good indeed.

RELEASE DAY: HOOD Omnibus

Today is a frabjous day, calloo callay, because the omnibus of HOOD–all three seasons in one place–is now available!

Anglene is smoldering. The galactic insurrection is supposed to be crushed. Robbhan Locke, a Second Echelon soldier, has returned to his birth planet along with other veterans, finding Sharl Notheim holding all of Sagittarius in his mailed fist for Parl Jun the Regent.

If the Gran Parl Riccar can be found, he could save all of Anglene. In the meantime, Robb, Marah, and their friends are going to have to do it themselves–if they survive.

The war is over, but “peace” is a relative term…

Available at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, and direct at Gumroad. Paper edition available through Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Note: Due to Amazon’s policies, the ebook will not be listed there, but don’t despair–if you’re a Kindle reader, we’ve got you covered! If you order through Gumroad, you’ll automatically get access to a .mobi you can add to said Kindle or Paperwhite.

Big, epic thanks are due to my beloved subscribers, without whom this series would never have seen light of day. (A surprising number of publishers didn’t want Robin Hood IN SPACE, but that’s their loss, I think.) Several subscribers are also Tuckerized, which always gives me a happy feeling when I reread.

Special thanks must also be given to the veterans who answered my questions about what “coming home” was like for them; I did my best to tell the truth, as you told it to me.

If you’d like to listen to the music that fueled the serial, you can find the playlist here.

In other news, every roof in the neighborhood has a thick white layer of frost on it, and the fog has also furred branches with soft white. As the sun mounts things will start to drip, and there will be brief gilding on every surface. Everything is oddly still since we’re still under some kind of inversion; this weather is odd indeed. It raises the hackles.

Still, coffee must be had, the dogs must be walked, and I’m hard at work on other stories. January’s turned out to be a busy bee of a month indeed.

See you around…

RELEASE DAY: She’s Fleeing a Byronic Hero

Happy Yule, my beloveds! It’s the darkest night of the year and the day the kids and I celebrate even if we miss the festival on the 25th. Tonight a candle will hold vigil for me, since I have lost the desire to be awake all night. And boy howdy, do I have something fun for you!

You may or may not remember one of IndigoChick Design‘s premade sales, where I snapped up a lovely, enchanting cover I really do have to write something serious for. It was the tagline on the cover that got me, though: She’s Fleeing a Byronic Hero. It reminded me of those 70s pulp gothic romances–women with great hair fleeing old houses. Of course I had to buy it, and I had to write a story.

And this is what happened.

She’s Fleeing a Byronic Hero

Titness McHawttie has fled her marriage to the disturbingly virile Byron Blackheart, Lord Chestthumper. Can she survive a night upon the moors with her faithful almost-unicorn–and will Byron find his vanished bride in time?

Now available direct from Gumroad, from Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, or Amazon. (Paperback also available.)

Note: This is a short story, about 10k words.

There’s all sorts of stuff jammed in here–gothic romance conventions, a pinkish almost-unicorn named Chicken, a dashing highwayman, an aged herbalist beldam, a cold-hearted baroness, Rocky Horror Picture Show callbacks, references to the divine Bette Midler, a distinct whiff of the SNL Scorched Corset skit, and more! Some of my beloved subscribers, whose support gave me the time and resources to write the dang thing, are also Tuckerised in it.

The “Lady” comes from my Yule gift to myself–an honest-to-gosh Scottish title–and “Alana Smithee” is a long-standing in-joke between Lady Skyla Dawn Cameron (also a Lady now) and Yours Truly. It’s 10k+ words of hilarity, and I had a great time putting it together.

I also begged my long-suffering cover designer for a new pulpy cover, and she gave me something great. I mean, just look at it. (I’m particularly fond of the 99p sticker. Takes me back, that does.)

So, just in time for Yule–I was waiting last night for one last sales platform to update; it’s near Christmas and everyone is overwhelmed–Titness McHawttie is fleeing across Heathencliffe Moors, and Byron Perssy Blackheart, Lord Chestthumper (who has fought more than one duel with persons mispronouncing his title) is in somewhat more-than-lukewarm pursuit. I hope you enjoy this little tale, my friends. I had a wonderful time with it.

And with that, I’m off. We’ve a busy day here at the chez, between some last-last-very last-minute shopping to prepare for the weekend, the dogs needing walking, a few spiritual observances, running my weary corpse, and some more work on Hell’s Acre. One I finish my coffee and swallow some toast I’ll be flying low with no brakes; should you hear a howling in the distance, don’t worry, my friends. It’s just me, moving at speed.

See you around.

RELEASE DAY: HOOD, Season Three

I have been an extraordinarily busy bee lately! HOOD‘s third and final season came to a close in May, but pandemic woes and hassles put off its wider debut. I meant to have this out in early August at the latest, but the world had other plans.

HOOD: Season Three

Robb Locke’s trapped in a high-security Panoptikon and Sharud is under embargo, the military governeur Notheim’s fist is tightening around the throat of the entire system for his master Jun Planetagen, and all hope is lost. Somewhere at the edge of charted space, the true ruler of Anglene is drifting in a wrecked flagship.

If Marah Madán can reach Gran Parl Riccar before the oxygen runs out, she can not only save Robb but also the rest of Anglene. It’s going to take all her wit, all her resources, and a collection of spies, codejackers, rebels, and outright criminals, not to mention betraying her other childhood friend–Ged Gizabón, a dangerous adversary with secrets of his own.

Anglene is boiling, ready for yet another bloody civil war–and when it ends, Jun will be not only the Parl but the unquestioned dictator of the entire galaxy. Unless Marah and her ragtag alliance can stop him.

No hero ever stands alone…

Now available at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, Amazon, and direct; print edition available here.

I loved writing my little Robin Hood…in SPACE! I especially loved the feedback from serial readers as we got to things I’d been planning and leaving Easter eggs for all through Seasons One and Two. Writing and finishing a final season under pandemic conditions was…not ideal, let’s say. But every time I thought “maybe I should just stop this, refund everyone’s subscription, and walk into the sea” someone wrote me saying that the last chapter had gotten them through something horrid, or that they were eager to know what happened next, or thanking me because they could look forward to weekly chapters of Robb and the gang’s death-defying stunts.

Like clockwork. That sort of thing makes a writer endure.

I wrote a little bit before about the literary influences of the serial, and there’s an Apple Music playlist. (I had to leave Spotify, my friends. Long story.) But if I absolutely have to be one hundred percent truthful, a lot of the serial’s genesis lay in a particular BBC series, and a particularly fine-nosed actor’s portrayal of Guy of Gisbourne.

Plus there were all the neckbeards writing me about how my faster-than-light communications (fittles, in the serial, for FTL), not to mention travel (starsteal), generation ships, and other stuff didn’t obey their particular neckbeard ideas about how sci-fi should be written. I was getting my ovaries all up in their space opera, and they didn’t like it–to complete the job of pissing them off, there’s a whole chapter stuffed full of Star Trek references, because if you’re going to come for me about sci-fi, assholes, you’d better come correct, and even your holy Asimov and Heinlein, not to mention Roddenberry, did a great deal of hand-waving. I shall not apologize for my own McGuffins.

The series is completely finished now; all three seasons are out in the wild, and there are plans for an omnibus edition. But for now, I’m going to take a breath and marvel at the fact that this particular season, written during lockdown and brought out under acid-test conditions, is finally having its book birthday.

A huge and hearty thank you is due to my beloved subscribers, without which this trilogy (not to mention Roadtrip Z) would not be. Said subscribers are currently funding Hell’s Acre, which I’m having a lot of fun with. The direct support, allowing me to tell longer, more complex stories which might not find a home in traditional publishing, is positively amazing. So, thank you, my friends, and I can’t wait for you to see what I’ve got planned next.

And as usual on a release day, here’s a link to my Discord server, where fans can discuss at leisure. (Said link will only be live for a medium-ish while, to dissuade bad actors.)

It’s been a long, strange ride. I’m not even feeling release-day exhilaration, just the regular nerves and a faint sort of harassed wonder that it’s whole and complete, especially under these conditions. I suppose I should go put my head in a bucket and do some deep breathing.

See you around, my friends.

RELEASE DAY: Moon’s Knight

It’s a Tuesday, which generally means new books. And what do you know, this Tuesday it means a new Lili book.

The portal fantasy I wrote last year (during the very bleakest part of that lockdown) was originally going to stay on my hard drive, unread by anyone other than me. My beta readers, however, were going through rough patch (who wasn’t, at that moment) so I said, “All right, here. Have this portal fantasy. It’s not much, but–“

I couldn’t even finish the sentence. They figuratively snatched it out of my hands, read it, then all three promptly informed me that I had to publish it. I sent it to my agent, who cursed me for making her like a portal fantasy, and so, resisting all the way, I was brought to the sticking-post.

So…here it is, for your delectation as well, dear Reader.

Drunk and disoriented after her best friend’s funeral, Ginevra Bennet stumbles through a door in an ivy-covered wall…and finds herself in a dry wasteland under a dying crimson sun, the only possible shelter a giant stone castle.

If it’s a hallucination, it’s a deadly one; the Keep is full of beauty, luxury, courtly manners–and monsters. The inhabitants rejoice in her arrival, dress her in white, and call her a queen. Greenery returns to their gardens, and the prince of the realm, with his silver-ringed eyes, seems very interested in Gin indeed. It should be the answer to every lonely young woman’s dreams.

But nothing in Gin’s life has ever been what it’s seemed. Not her best friend, not her upbringing, and most especially not her nightmares. Drowning, violent death, a stone roof, and the hallucinatory prince have filled her nights, and Gin hopes she’s going mad–because the alternative is just too scary to contemplate.

Caught in a web of manners, intrigue, and betrayal, Gin has to depend on her sorely tested wits and uncertain sanity. There are Gates at the edge of the wasteland, and if she can escape the castle and its beautiful, terrifying inhabitants, she might just find a few answers and be able to get home.

Assuming, of course, home is where she really wants to be…

Available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Google Play, and direct; print edition also available here.

I was trying out a new print distribution service for the paper edition, figuring it was a great time to experiment. The experiment did not go well, so I’m making other plans. So yes, the paper edition is forthcoming–it was supposed to drop a full week before the ebook, but like I said, the experiment didn’t go well. (Translation: I will not be recommending that particular print distro to my publishing friends.) So I’m sort of scrambling to get the rest put together, and I’ll tell you when the paper edition goes live. [ETA: It’s live! You can find it here.]

I suppose today is a release day, though I intended to just quietly drop this book with no warning and no fanfare. Best-laid plans, and all that.

So, uh, I wrote a book. Here it is. You might like it, though I kept telling the beta readers, “It’s very slight. There’s not a lot of action. It…dammit, I’m still talking, why are you walking away and reading at the same time? THAT’S DANGEROUS!”

I suspect I am a trial to my poor beta readers as well as everyone else, most days. So I’ll just go stick my head in a bucket like usual on release days, and let the world do as it will. Maybe now this story will leave me alone.

Happy Tuesday!

HELL’S ACRE, In June

It’s June, and you know what that means–Hell’s Acre is now underway! An all-new serial adventure, delivered weekly, and full of stuff Bannon & Clare fans might like–carriages, dresses, a London where the Roman Empire never fell, rooftop battles, assassinations, and the like. There won’t be any magic, per se, but a great deal of semi-combat sorcery Mikal might approve of.

If you’re interested, you can get the first three chapters for free here.

It’s a holiday Monday, so I’m off to walk the dogs before it gets too warm. They’re saying 90F or near it for the next couple days, and I am a pale Pacific Northwest mushroom who shrivels in such temperatures. I plan to work only a half-day today and then retire to the couch to knock off the rest of a book on the Ancient Rome and the silk trade. (It’s all Rome, all the time in here lately.)

I wish you a blessed Memorial Day, my friends. I woke up with Dolly Parton playing inside my head, so I’m hopeful for a good day.

Over and out!