Final hours to enter into a drawing for a free copy of Another Healing on Allison Cassatta’s blog. Read my interview! Thanks so much!
Click HERE
Guest on Allison Cassatta’s Blog
I’m the guest on Alison Cassatta’s Blog today! Stop by and read my answers to her interview questions and enter into a drawing for a free copy of my most recent novel, Another Healing!
Click HERE
Crazy Busy
Life just went nuts a few weeks ago, in good ways. The school year ended, we had a wedding in the family, and my husband, youngest daughter, our two cats, and I decided to move. This is not as random as it sounds. We have a beautiful family camp that has been in my family for about four generations, and it was going to be unoccupied this summer, so we have taken it over. It’s amazingly beautifil, right on the shore of Lake Champlain, with a view streatches across three miles of open water to the Champlain Islands and the Adirondack Mountains of New York. We’re on top of a thirty foot dolomite cliff where thunderstorms slam into us with a vengence, and it’s wild and woodsey. There is a pair of Peregrin Falcons nesting on the cliff nearby — I see them flying by our two huge picture windows all day and their calls fill the air.
But camp has some drawbacks — no internet, no TV reception, no drinking water, an iffy septic system, tiny bedrooms, steep stairs, no insulation so it’s damn cold in the morning, and more spiders and ants than I knew existed. It took us a week to get it cleaned up and settled, and we’re still not quite there, but I’m getting things under control. I keep thinking that I can kick back and refocus and get to writing, but then things happen like one cat gets an inflamed hip and I get bittten by a tick. But anyway, I’m still here (runnng off my phone’s hot spot setting). Hopefully this will post! I will get some photos up soon.
School Year Almost Done!
This time of year is like running a marathon!The kids are crazy, I’m crazy.
Three more days of exams and then SUMMER and a novel to write! I can’t wait!
Book Trailer — The Dragon and the Palm Tree
And The Dragon and the Palm Tree is out! To everybody who’s been wanting more Varian and Josh — thank you so much for your interest in my characters!
I made a book trailer using photos from my two recent trips to Florida. I admit that I was scared to death in the plane — it had been years since I’d flown. Sometimes I think there may be a little too much of me in Varian. But I have to say, he was more afraid than I was. With good reason. Watch the trailer and you’ll see what I mean.
Here’s a link to the trailer: Click HERE
And here’s a link to purchase the story: HERE
Here’s the official blurb:
A dragon shifter’s worst nightmare is an airplane flight in human form, with every self-preservation instinct in them screaming to shift. Varian knows this fear must be overcome sometime if dragons want to keep blending in with humans. But he doesn’t know that the day he faces his nightmare will also be the day his lover Josh decides to come out as a woman. A trip to Florida becomes both a journey into the air and deep into themselves, for both of them.
And here’s an excerpt:
Josh handed me a paper cup of water. “We have tickets for a nonstop flight to Florida tomorrow morning,” he said steadily. “You and me, and Justin and Wells. Huntington is going to stay here with Jenny, along with Lindsay and Sam.”
I drained the water. If Huntington wasn’t there, he couldn’t use his power to control our fear if we couldn’t handle it. At least, he might not be able to respond quickly enough. So they really thought Justin and I could handle this on our own?
“I know you’ve been having a rough semester,” Josh went on calmly. “I know you need a break. But if we drag this out, you’ll worry yourself into a panic about it. There’s nothing you have to do to prepare. You already have the strength inside you to endure it. I suspect you’ll be so calm that you’ll get that whole stack of essays in your pack graded before we land.”
“Only if I give them all A’s,” I moaned, looking up at him.
Josh laughed. He pulled me to my feet and into an embrace. “Perfect. Everyone will be happy, and you’ll be fine.”
“Josh. If I’m in the air, my instinct is going to be to shift form. And when I shift in a space that’s too small for my dragon body, everything in my way gets blasted apart. I know that — I’ve done it. Do you not get that if either Justin or I shift inside an airplane, we’re going to destroy it? And a whole bunch of people, maybe even us, are going to get killed?”
He smiled and pressed close. “Which is why I know you and Justin won’t shift. And once you two have proven to the rest of the clan that dragons can fly, then they’ll know they have that option, too. And someday, if you really need to get someplace fast, you’ll know that you can. Trust me.”
The fact that I trusted him implicitly was the only reason I was even thinking about doing this. I just hoped this wouldn’t be the first time his knack for predicting the future was wrong.
“And,” Josh said, pressing closer still, “you would not believe the bathing suit that the UPS guy delivered here today. Trust me, Varian, there’s nothing you will not do to see me sitting beneath a palm tree in it.”
I managed a weak laugh. “Well, it better come off easier that this damn robe of yours.”
“It will melt like butter beneath your fingertips,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper silkier than the turquoise robe. “And, once we get Jenny settled, I have something very special planned for tonight.” He pressed even closer, voice dropping lower. “I know you won’t sleep anyway, so believe me, you won’t even get a chance to try.”
Enjoy, everybody!
On Sale!
I’m for sale this week!
I mean, selected titles of mine are ON sale this week at Torquere Press.
The Dragon and the Palm Tree comes out tomorrow! Now’s the time to make sure you have the earlier books in the Notice Series so you can sit back and read them all in the right order. Which is:
Notice (the novel that started it all: meet Varian and Josh at the beginning!)
The Dragon and the Mistletoe (Varian and Josh’s proposal of marriage) short story
The Dragon and his Knight (introduces Justin and Wells — a thousand year old dragon/human bonded pair) novella
Origin (in the Shifting Steam Anthology — a Steampunk tale of Justin and Wells set in Victorian England) short story
A Sky Full of Wings (Varian and Josh’s wedding, and the story where they meet up with Justin and Wells, and Jenny joins the family) novella
Night of Ceremony (an earthquake strikes the dragon clan)
And… The Dragon and the Palm Tree (Varian and Justin attempt to conquer their fear of flying in airplanes) novella
And HERE is the link to this week’s sale page at Torquere.
You can also get my first ever m/m erotic romance, The Glass Man, on sale now. Proud to say it’s been selling steadily for almost five years. And don’t forget Ice, a hot science fiction novella.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the link to the book trailer I made for The Dragon and the Palm Tree. It’s full of photos I took of Florida and airplanes.
Thank you all so much!
Less Than a Week to The Dragon and the Palm Tree!
It’s almost here! My third release in three months!
Next Wednesday, May 28, The Dragon and the Palm Tree will join Another Healing and Haunted Halls.
I finished this novella in January, but I started it last summer on my way home from a trip to Florida. At the time, I was getting ready to submit Another Healing and Haunted Halls, so all three of these stories are bound up in my head. I remember that a friend who was on the trip with my husband and me was helping me set up the formatting for the other two — different publishers all have different formatting requirements and these things drive me nuts.
Anyway, I’d fallen in love with palm trees and the ocean (way warmer than our New England Atlantic ever thought of being) and I was thinking how much I’d like to see Varian and Josh on a tropical beach. But no plot was jumping at me. Then a few months later, my husband and I returned to Florida, this time on a plane. It was the first time I’d flown in a long time, since before post-9/11 security, and I was a bit nervous about the whole thing. And then the plot came to me. If I was scared to fly, what would it be like for Varian and Justin — two dragons confined inside a plane? The urge to shift would be almost uncontrollable, and if they did, it would be catastrophic. Ah, yes!
At the same time, just to make things even more complicated, Josh decides that now is the time to come out as a female. The results — well, you’ll have to wait until May 28 to find out!
Haunted Halls Release Day!
So Haunted Halls snuck out yesterday before midnight by a few hours, but that’s okay. Today’s the official release day on my calendar, and I’m celebrating! I took a long walk and reflected on where I’m at in my writing and then hung out my hummingbird feeders for the summer. (I know, not very exciting. I’ll have some ice cream in a minute.)
But putting out my feeders makes me happy, even though I don’t expect any hummingbirds to be here for a few days, at least. I want to make sure they feel welcome when they arrive. Yes, the same ones come back year after year, and their babies do, too. I’ve been in kind of a lull the past few weeks because I’ve taken in my sunflower seed feeders so the bears don’t get them (yes, there are black bears here) and I’m looking forward to the hummers.
There is a connection between Haunted Halls and hummingbirds. I wrote Haunted Halls last summer during a period when I was letting myself have a little distance from Another Healing, the novel that ate my life for three years. I actually finished both pieces and subbed them about the same time. Hence they have both been released close to the same time. Last summer feels like ages ago. I was frantically getting Final Awakening and Webs ready to be released in September, too.
I’ve only actually written two pieces this winter — The Dragon and the Palm Tree which is coming out in a few weeks, and Natural Instincts, which is still in progress. It’s hard to describe how much energy goes into the editing process and all the marketing that goes along with it, including making book trailers, which take a lot of time. Now I’m working on my next Charity Sip which is due in a few weeks. I’m very ready for a focused period of writing once Palm Tree is released. I’ve decided to work on a novel idea I’ve had for a long time — another ghost story. This one is called Jai. So far it’s going really well, and I’m going to do my best not to let any other projects distract me from it.
So that was the result of my walk this afternoon.
Anyway, I hope people are enjoying Haunted Halls and a glimpse into my college days. It’s picking up some very nice early reviews already. Thank you all so much!
Remember, I’m also on Facebook HERE
And Twitter HERE
Haunted Halls is Out!
It’s officially available! Buy it HERE
Watch the trailer HERE
And thank you so much to all the wonderful folks at Less Than Three for making this story possible!
Here’s an excerpt:
My first night on campus—while I was all homesicky-weepy and trying like hell to hide it—I saw a guy with long, dark hair sitting on the railing of an aerial walkway that bisected the two-story high dining hall, way up above my head. It was high enough that I wouldn’t have wanted to look down if I’d been up there, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have sat on the narrow railing with my feet dangling about a mile above the people’s heads.
“Whoa, look at that!” I pointed upward with my fork, shocked out of my shy silence. My three roommates—all tough, he-manly type guys—turned. I’d only met them a few hours ago. Fellow freshmen seeking safety in numbers, we’d gone to dinner together. I kept getting their names mixed up.
“What?” one of them asked.
“That guy sitting up there!” I glanced at them in shock. How could they miss him? Then I looked back up and felt like an idiot. “Oh. He was sitting on the railing.” I scanned. He must have gone into one of the classrooms at the end of the walkway. Very quickly. “That was nuts.”
My roommates turned around and went back to eating and talking about which freshmen girls were the hottest. I rose, said goodbye, and followed a couple other kids with empty trays to a pair of garbage cans next to a shelf. Then I saw a stairway that looked like the one I’d come down. I went up, putting my hands in my hoodie pockets and hunching my shoulders, trying to look like I knew my way around. It was only six-thirty in the evening. What was I going to do until it was late enough to crawl into my bed? Don’t cry. Don’t cry! Damn, I was going to cry.
Once outside, wiping my eyes on the sleeve of my fleece jacket, I headed away from the dorms. The campus crowned a hilltop like a castle built on a high, defensible spot above the town that nestled in the valley below. Skirting the ring of academic buildings where I would start my higher education tomorrow, I paused a moment and took in the beauty of the other hills around me. They glowed in the light of the setting sun as the foliage slowly took on the hues of autumn that Vermont was known for. As a Vermont native myself, I knew that in a few weeks the hills would be blazing like fire, but tonight, everything was soft gold mixed with green; the delicate balance between summer and fall. The inevitable change made me sadder. I had so not wanted this summer to end!
I headed for what the campus map called the Lower Pond. Teardrop-shaped, appropriately, it was nestled between a nicely mowed lawn on one side and a brushy bank on the other. The far end of the pond was filled with tall cattails, their green fronds rustling quietly in the evening breeze. In the middle of the water crouched a rock like a giant gray turtle. A matching turtle rock lay before me on the pond’s edge, where the path ended. It was big enough for two people to sit on.
I couldn’t see anybody around, anywhere. For a moment, I leaned against the rock, then took my hands out of my pockets and pushed myself up so I sat on it. It didn’t grow legs and start walking. I sighed and wiped my eyes. Stress and exhaustion feed my imagination way too much. I tried to let the solace of the late summer evening sink in. A bullfrog croaked over in the cattails, and a gentle gust of wind rattled the branches of the birch trees on the brushy bank. The only way I knew the campus existed was the faint music coming out of somebody’s dorm window.
Prison window.
Where I was going to be locked up for the next four years.
Don’t leave me here! But it was too late to call my parents back. Damn, what was wrong with me? What guy on his first night on campus sat by a pond and cried? I was supposed to be getting drunk and stoned and laid. What would my roommates think if they knew that none of those things had happened to me? One guy already had two kids by two different women, or so he claimed. And they both wanted him. At the same time, as a threesome. Or so he claimed. I buried my face in my hands. I wanted my own bed. Granted, I was still in Vermont and only a few hours from home, which was an old farm on Lake Champlain . I didn’t want to be on this damn campus practically up in Canada just because my mother worked for the state, hence my free tuition. There’d been no choice about where I was going to go. Even though I hadn’t wanted to go anywhere. I didn’t want to be anywhere but at home.
God, I missed my parents! Did all only children go through this? My friends from big families had been counting down the hours to freedom. I knew they weren’t feeling like they were in jail tonight. Right now, they were probably getting stoned and drunk and laid. Or at least they were happy.
If I were home on a Sunday night, we’d be playing cards and eating popcorn around the kitchen table. Mom would be singing along with her country CDs, and Dad and I would be rolling our eyes and laughing when she whacked us over our heads with her cards. Were they doing that tonight? I rocked back and forth, hugging my knees and pressing my forehead down into them.
It’ll get better once classes start, I told myself. I’d have homework. The library would be open at night. And in classes, I’d meet other history majors, and we could talk about the Crusades as opposed to some stupid idiot’s conquests. But that knowledge felt hollow, compared to the enormity of the present. Tonight, I was going to have to sleep in a room with three strangers who were planning to party until morning. Going to bed and reading until I fell asleep wasn’t going to be an option.
How cold would it be on this rock at two o’clock in the morning?
I wiped my eyes again. It was already getting dark. My last summer of freedom, fading away. I’d started crying last night, sitting at my desk at home. I hadn’t really stopped all day; I’d just hidden it. Everything I’d dreaded all summer—really, all of my senior year—was now coming to pass. I couldn’t do it, I abruptly decided.
Filled with sudden determination, I got to my feet so quickly that I scuffed some loose stones into the water, causing faint splashes. An answering splash came from the middle of the pond, as though someone else had just done the same thing from the rock in the middle. I looked up, feeling my face flaming over being caught crying. It would be all over campus by morning! Then logic hit me. As if there’d been somebody out on the rock in the middle of the pond watching me. A big frog, probably. In the dim light, I could see faint rings spreading out from where it had landed. It was probably that bullfrog I’d heard earlier. God, I was stupid! I leapt down from my rock and headed back up the path, reaching for my phone to call home and tell them to come get me. Right now.
And yet I couldn’t get the feeling out of my head that somebody had been watching me.
It’s Haunted Halls Week!
Haunted Halls will be released on Wednesday! Very excited.
Haunted Halls is my college story. (Sort of.) I wrote it when my oldest daughter had just graduated from college and my youngest was choosing a college. It got me thinking about my own college experiences, and I have to say that if any of my characters is a lot like me, it’s Evan. I hated the idea of college. I was shy, quiet, and a total homebody. I didn’t want to go, no way, no how. My mother forced me into it, and I didn’t have a lot of choices where I went because, like Evan, I had free tuition at the state colleges since my mother worked for the state. I understood that a free education was not to be passed up, so I unwillingly packed my clothes, some books, my typewriter (gasp!) and moved into Johnson State College, which was about an hour away from my beloved home.
I was utterly miserable my first night. My roommate was just like the ones I describe Evan having (except that I made him suffer with three) and yes, I spent my first night huddled in a stairwell. I also hid at the pond and in the library, and I made many tearful phone calls home begging to be released from prison.
But, like Evan, I finally made friends. I took the initiate to move out of my room and away from my mean, nasty, horrible roommate and in with someone I got along with a lot better. I began to like my classes (I majored in writing. Go figure.) I even, by the end of the year, had found a boyfriend. Yes, we kissed by the pond. (The pond, I describe in exact detail in the story, down to the two rocks, one on shore and one out in the water. I swam to that one once, so I have sat on both.)
My boyfriend was a lot like Gabriel, except for having a fear of heights. No way would he have sat on the railing of the balcony in the dining hall (which I also describe in perfect detail). But he was a very kind, older guy who kept an eye on stressed out freshmen, in a good way. And, of course, my boyfriend hadn’t died…
I ended up marrying my boyfriend a few years after graduation. So it’s a good thing I stuck out those first few weeks of hell.
And the college that our oldest daughter just graduated from? The same one. And next month, she’s marrying the young man she met her freshman year. And two nights ago, I was back on campus for a concert that my husband was playing in.
Who says time moves in a line? It’s a spiral, for sure.
Click HERE for a link to the Johnson State College website so you can see what the college looks like today.
And click HERE to preorder your copy of Haunted Halls on sale, so you’ll have it bright and early on Wednesday morning and save money!
Thanks!