Bad News…and Good News!

Hey, all.

Sorry I had to take down the chapters of Dreams of the Boardwalk that I had posted.  It seems that Amazon doesn’t appreciate it when you try to sell something that’s available online for free, even if what’s online for free is a first draft that went on to be significantly revised.

But that brings us to the good news: Dreams of the Boardwalk is completed and going up this week!  Stay tuned – just a couple days until everything is ready, and then Dreams of the Boardwalk will be available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback formats!

 

Neighborhood Witch Is Now Available on Amazon!

A new story up on Amazon for the first time in far too long! Here’s the Amazon blurb:

Celia Rivera is a well-respected citizen of the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. She runs her own little shop, and she’s respected by everyone from the old men playing dominoes on the corner to the young people who spend their days looking for trouble to get into. They respect her wisdom, her toughness…

Oh. And she’s a witch.

Celia Rivera’s shop sells more than candles and incense, and she keeps her little corner of the City safe for everyone. And when someone targets her family for magical retribution, it’s time for the kind of magical street fight that can only happen in the City.

Check out Neighborhood Witch’s page, or just go straight to Amazon and download a copy. And as always, while you’re there, check out the rest of the library!

Field Hospital is Now Available on Amazon and Free to Download!

A brand new story, this one in honor of my sister Meaghan, is up for sale on Amazon, and free to download now through Thursday 12/15!  Here is the Amazon blurb:

On an Air Force base in the middle of the desert, Captain Eileen Brennan waits to treat the casualties of a war that everyone back home thinks is over. But today, she will treat the wounded of a war far greater than the one she thought she was fighting.

Check out Field Hospital’s home page, or just go straight to Amazon and download yourself a free copy!  And as always, while you’re there, check out the rest of the library!

An Excerpt from Changeling

Changeling Title

Hey, all!  Tomorrow is the last day that Changeling is available for free download at Amazon.  If you haven’t downloaded a copy yet, here’s a taste of what you’re missing:

“Who are you, mortal, that you dare to approach the banshee?”

The woman just smiled and held out a hand hardened by a lifetime of work. “The name’s Bridget Flanagan,” She answered. “And you?”

The banshee held up a hand that looked…remarkably similar to her own…and wagged a finger at her. “Oh, no you don’t,” it said. “You’re not getting my name out of me that easily, mortal.”

Bridget dropped her hand and shook her head.

“You’re too used to dealing with wise women and cunning men,” She chuckled. “I’m neither. Just makin’ me manners.”

“So you say,” the banshee retorted. “But you people never seek out the Fair Folk unless you want something. You go after the fairies for wishes and the leprechauns for gold, and I can guess what you want from a Banshee. Who is it?”

Bridget’s face fell. She’d never heard tell of a fae who was shrewd, for all their mischief, or who had no interest in playing games.

Everyone learns, I s’pose, and forever’s a lot more time to do it than twoscore years and seven. Best to be about it, then.

“Me daughter,” she answered. “First birth is always the hardest, but she’s as strong as her old mum. She’d have been fine if she hadn’t taken fever.”

“ Rotten luck,” The banshee said. And did she actually sound…sympathetic? “I’m sorry, truly, but there are rules. And spirits, be we angel, devil, or sidhe, don’t have choices about following rules. That’s for you mortals. I sing death; that’s what I am. There’s nothing to be done.”

But Bridget Flanagan wasn’t one to be put off so easily. “ Nothing?” She countered. “My Patrick has been run in by the law enough times for me to know that some rules have more give than others. Sometimes, yes, you go in the lock-up…but other times, you pay your fine and go your way.”

“ Oh, human…” the banshee sighed. “What are you trying to do?”

“You say you sing death,” Bridget pressed. “Does it have to be anybody’s death in particular?”

The banshee raised its hands and shook its hooded head.

“Human…Bridget…no. Just stop. I’ve heard this so many times before. What you want is forbidden.”

“Ah, there now, that’s an interesting thing,” Bridget said triumphantly, pointing as she always did when she had someone good and pinned down. “You tell me it’s forbidden, but nobody bothers to forbid something that can’t be done.  There’s no laws against counterfeiting by shitting gold coins, after all.”

“Bridget,” The banshee said, taking hold of the pointing hand and – not ungently – moving it away. “If I could do what you wish, not a child would die in this world as long as there was a parent left to say ‘take me instead’.”

Bridget just shook her head. “Oh, come now, what kind of fool do you take me for? Fool enough to think Old Man Death would find taking me sooner rather than later to be a deal worth making?”

“What deal are you making, then?”

Bridget grinned to herself. She had the spirit’s attention now. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been to these parts, you know. Do you remember?”

“I’ve been to all of Ireland,” The banshee answered “I remember it all, but I don’t know which part you want me to remember right now.”

“When last you were here, you sang for my husband.”

There was a long moment of silence. If the banshee had been human, Bridget would have guessed that it was stunned at being confronted by someone who’d been hurt by its work, at being forced to think of that person as someone who hurt instead of a simple singing engagement.

But it wasn’t human, now was it? Surely a creature who “sang death” couldn’t feel such things.

But sure, and didn’t that sound like a sigh that came out from under its hood before it spoke again. “Bridget, I’m sorry. I really am. But I’m afraid that doesn’t change anything.”

“I didna think it would. And there’s no need to be sorry.”

Pause.

“…what’s that again?”

“Jimmy Flanagan was a good man, God rest his soul, and I loved him.” Bridget said. “But his death was no harder than most I’ve seen – a heart attack is head and shoulders above what our Meaghan is facing right now – and my heart didn’t break when he died.”

“No?”

Bridget shook her head. “No. I loved him, but I never could love him the way other wives loved their husbands. When he took me to bed, it was doin’ me duty, not kickin’ up me heels like it is for most women at least once in a while.” She interrupted herself to shake a finger at her spectral companion. “And not because his idea of getting me ready was ‘brace yourself, Bridey’. Jimmy did the best he could, poor man.” She paused a moment then, and her eyes went very far away, and when she spoke it was much softer. “And I never knew why. Why I couldn’t love him like that, I mean…until I heard you sing, and it was like a mermaid instead of a banshee.”

The eerie blue lights within the cowl blinked, and the hooded head cocked. “What in the name of Oberon’s knickers do you mean by that?”

Bridget rolled her eyes. “Ye bewitched me, that’s what I mean. I couldn’t tear meself away. If I’d known ye would be this easy to find, I would’ve come to you on the moment.”

“Well most people don’t want to find – “ The banshee began. Then she realized what she was saying. “Are ye daft, woman?”

“Most likely,” Bridget admitted. “I certainly thought the other girls mad when they acted like I’m acting. Thought my way with my Jimmy was more sensible. Now they’re thirty years past it and I’m acting like a girl with her tits just starting to bud making calf eyes at a boy at her first dance.”

“And I’m…the boy?” The banshee asked, still struggling to understand just what this mad human was saying to her.

“You are.”

For the rest of the story, head on over and download yourself a free copy of Changeling from Amazon.

And while you’re there, of course, check out the rest of the library.

Changeling is Available for Free Download Now Through Thursday!

Changeling Title

I thought that I’d change it up a little this week, and have the featured story be a romance instead of horror.  Of course, being who I am, even the romance is a bit uncanny.

If you want to see what I mean, head on over and download yourself a free copy of Changeling from Amazon.

And while you’re there, of course, check out the rest of the library.

The One Rose Trilogy, Matriarchy and Following Your Own Rules

Compass Rose

(This review was first published on April 1, 2014, on my old blog.   The articles it refers to will appear here eventually, but this one had to go up now in response to this tumblr post.)

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post that used the Left Behind novels as a worst-case example for remaining consistent to the rules you establish in your story (as they are the worst-case example for so many things). In the same post, I included what I consider to be a good example of remaining consistent to the rules you establish: the One Rose trilogy by Gail Dayton.

Having had a bit of time to think about it, it seems that the positive example and advice for internal consistency deserves a bit more attention, as does the One Rose Trilogy itself.
Continue readingThe One Rose Trilogy, Matriarchy and Following Your Own Rules”

Another Fine Portrait of An Awesome Character

Dubiousbyhabit of Sartorially Smart Heroines has posted a new portrait of Queen Viarraluca, the protagonist of Dubious’s upcoming fantasy novel, First Empress.  Once again, the portrait is the work of the talented MJ Barros.

Queen Vi is looking particularly imposing in this portrait.  As Dubious explains on Tumblr:

The scene here is where she confronts a nobleman who conspired to pay an assassin to take her out. The confrontation doesn’t go well for him.

It doesn’t go well for the assassin, either.  Somehow, we’ve developed this cultural idea of assassins as the ultimate death machines, but we forget: assassins don’t have opponents, they have victims.  If an assassin is fighting anyone, they’ve already screwed up.  And if they’re dealing with a warrior, a warrior who sees them coming…well.  In that case, it tends to be the warrior who has a victim instead of an opponent.

PS – I recommend you check out “Portrait Four”.  It’s just as NSFW as Dubious warns, but it’s also beautiful.

It Was Taking Too Long

Hey, all.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been rolling out my old short stories one at a time, each complete with their own product page and a promotional post on the blog.  But like the title says, I decided that was taking too long.  Those stories were published before.  There was no point in drawing things out.

So now, all previously published stories are once again available at Amazon.  All are also enrolled in KDP Select, so if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, they are available there for your reading pleasure.

Product pages coming soon, as well as new stories.  And keep your eye out for promotions!

 

 

The Guardian Cats of New York City: Watcher On The Shore is now available for sale!

Watcher on the Shore Title

Hey, all!

Like the title says, The Guardian Cats of New York City: The Watcher On The Shore is once again available for sale and for checkout on Kindle Unlimited.  For the story that gives us our first look at what happens when there’s something too big for the Guardian Cats to handle – and how they manage to help any – check out the Short Stories page, The Watcher On The Shore‘s own page, or just go straight to Amazon.

To whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt:

Nar-Tali didn’t often envy the senses of the two-legs, nose-numb and half-deaf as they were. But tonight he would have accepted their night-blindness if it had brought with it the distance and clarity of their vision. The Thing that was coming, it was coming from the water. He could sense that now, feel it in his whiskers and fur and bones like the coming of the storm. But as much as he strained his senses toward the Great Salty Water, he could detect nothing. The roaring of the rain filled his hearing; the water and the wind washed away all smells.

Then the skyfire flashed again, and he caught a glimpse of…something. It was distant and unclear and it was only there for a moment, but it was…it was like a hill had suddenly risen up out of the water, then slid smoothly back in.

The sky rumbled in response to the skyfire, drowning out all sound. But as the last of the echoes of the sky-roar faded, Nar-Tali thought he heard the last echoes of another – a distant reptilian bellow.

There it was again. Much closer this time. And much, much louder.

Nar-Tali noticed that the ragged two-legs was standing beside him now, staring out at the Great Salty Water. For all the good it would do him. Even if the hill in the water surfaced again, all he would see was black on black. Not that he, Nar-Tali, was doing much better. With all this blinding rain coming down, he might as well be a two-legs himself.

Wait – there it was. The hill in the water. It was beside the long wooden sidewalk that went out onto the water now, and it was approaching shore.

On some instinct, Nar-Tali nudged the ragged two-legs, then pointed toward the shore.

The two-legs nodded. He saw it, too.

The hill was rising out of the water. Only it was longer now. More of a ridge.

The ridge kept rising. And rising. And then it broke the surface, and…

Oh. Great. Sekhmet.

It was huge.

Bast have mercy, it was a great serpent. As long as the sidewalk-over-the-water…no, longer, as long as one of the great metal serpents that carried two-legs in their bellies as they screamed along the rails. And at least as thick.

Its head was broad and flat and angular, with horns and razored spines sticking out in all directions. Its mouth, with its three rows of fangs, was easily capable of taking the ragged two-legs whole. Its scales gleamed black in the light of the boardwalk lamps, and its eyes glowed a poisonous green.

It thrashed and coiled its way out of the surf, and then it was on shore, rushing forward on thousands of limbs of all description. Crab legs and lizard feet supported it as tentacles and jellyfish stingers waved in the air.

It was so big. So impossibly big. As big as old Apophis, but he was no Bast. He was just Nar-Tali. He couldn’t fight that. But he’d felt the calling in his bones tonight, the call to duty. Why had he been called if he could do nothing? There must be –

And then the ragged two-legs was striding forward, a stick in one hand, the other under his coat. “Whoa there!” He shouted. “Hey, whoa there!”