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And here it is! The really cool cover by Brooke Albrecht, who designed the covers for my Another Healing series. Isn’t this  Varian, with all his dragon related stress and worries showing? The cover of the next book will have Josh, of course.  The firedragon, by wongvaris, will be on everything in the Notice Series.

Right now, I’m just waiting to get the proof of the print version, which should come in the mail on Wednesday. Assuming it’s all right, I just have to approve it. Once that happens, I’m not sure how long it takes for the book to actually be available, but I’m hoping it will be by the end of this week or soon after. Then I will breathe a huge sigh of relief, because this process of self publishing has been quite the adventure for someone as technology challenged and anxious as I am.

Now that I know how to do it, mostly, the next two books in the series should come much sooner. Flights of Dragons, the compilation of all the stories in the Notice Universe plus a one brand new one, is with the proofreader. The third novel, Wings over Water, is with my editor. That book (the dragon in the kayak story) is all new, with a new dragon as well as old friends.

In the meantime, here is the blurb for Notice:

 

Consider this your official notice …

Teaching a high school history class is hard enough, never mind the secrets Varian has to hide to keep his job. It’s not like the school board would look kindly on a fire-breathing gay man. And that’s no euphemism.

Varian is the light-anointed leader of a dragon shifter clan, one of a handful of dragon communities still thriving after centuries of persecution by the secret society of knights. When he’s challenged by formal notice from an unknown knight, he can no longer pretend that he’s got it all under control. There are life-or-death choices to be made—including whether to admit his sternly controlled feelings for the man to whom he’s never told the truth.

This is the revised second edition of a novel originally published in 2011 by Torquere Press.

Stay tuned for a link to the book trailer and behind the scenes thoughts on how I made it, and my thoughts on the Notice series as a whole, and some excerpts. Getting excited!

 

I’m starting a newsletter to announce new releases and other writing updates. You can sign up to receive it HERE

It will only come out occasionally when there’s something major to announce, but this way you’ll be sure you won’t miss anything exciting. (Because there’s exciting stuff coming up!)

Thanks!

I LOVE making book trailers. Photography has always been one of my passions, and I have built up my own photo library over the years so that I can draw on my own work to create trailers for my books. It’s great not to have to worry about copyrighted photos and all that stuff. But sometimes, it’s really frustrating, because most of  my photos have some kind of nature theme going on, and that doesn’t always fit. Also, I can’t ever use people in my trailers. So I have to come up with images that “suggest” what I want to show. Usually I come close, but sometimes my long suffering editor just politely clears her throat and shakes her head. (Well, sometimes shes’s a little more direct. Ahem.)

Anyway, I live in Vermont where it’s winter most of the time, so coming up with snow shots wasn’t hard. All the snowy photos are from right around our house, including the brook video in the beginning. The door with the sign is our front door. (Yes, I dug out colored pencils and made the sign.) The fireworks shot is from last New Year’s Eve in downtown Burlington, as is the shot of the lights on Church Street.  The rope on the pillow, well, I’m not going to go into details about that. Suffice it to say I had a lot of trouble coming up with an image to get that idea across. Likewise, I took a lot of photos of drinks and bottles to suggest a bar. The shot of the traffic on the road in the sunset is one I took on my way to dropping my daughter off for college in Massachusetts a few years ago. And the “stormy coast of Maine” is actually in New Hampshire, just across the Maine border. But I liked the video so much I lied a little. All the other ocean photos are in Maine, I promise.  Most of the photos were taken in the past year with the same camera for consistency (I use an iPhone 7– yeah, I cringe a little to say that since I was born and raised on single lens reflex cameras and I know my way around in a darkroom, and for a while I had published more photos than books. But damn, my phone does a nice job and it’s always in my pocket.)

So that’s the scoop on the trailer. I’ve also just finished the one for the reprint of Notice and I’m working on the one for Flights of Dragons. So stay tuned for more!

Watch the trailer HERE

 

So today, on Winter’s release to the world, I’ve been thinking a lot about the book and writing it and what was going on in my head. And I’m kind of having trouble remembering. Last year was a tumultuous time of my life — my mother had died, I was contemplating leaving my day job and making a go of writing full time, my  youngest daughter was graduating from college… So I think Winter was a kind of escape from all that, a place I could throw my brain that was totally unlike the real world.

The main character, Aster, is a really nice guy. Even under pressure, he’s always polite. People sense his kindness and gravitate toward him– the woman who owns the adult shop where he works, the guys down the road, the man at the gym, and of course Vanor. Aster, who is very comfortable with his sexuality, is looking for a dom of his own. And when he finds one, his whole life gets turned upside down in ways he’d never dreamed. Suddenly, his inherent niceness is faced with a wrong of epic proportions to try to right, and it takes all the love he has inside to face it.

Vanor, without giving away spoilers, has been around for a very long time (think Vikings). His life is not fully his own, and he is trapped in a cruel way to a fate he can’t escape. He makes the best of a horrible situation. Meeting Aster, who fills a need deep inside him, gives him an outlet for his desires, but at the same time, makes him even more aware of how trapped by his circumstances he is.

The one thing Vanor does not want is for Aster to be drawn any deeper into his life. The one thing Aster wants is for Vanor to be free. Hence the conflict.

Winter is the hottest book I’ve written since Webs. (Remember Webs? Science fiction, the ship that runs off energy from sex?) But, as my editor pointed out, the conflict of the book does not revolve around the BDSM lifestyle. Both characters are completely comfortable with who they are. Their times together are their refuge from the world. “Winter” is their safeword. And it gets used.

What is an Intrepid? I can’t say without making a spoiler, but I can say where I got the idea. Back in the 1960s, a sailboat named Intrepid was built. She won the America’s Cup twice and eventually found her way to Lake Champlain in the 1970s, where she was moored across the bay from my camp and available for charter. I saw her on the lake every day when I was a teenager, and I remember one quiet evening when someone in a camp nearby shouted across the water, “You are beautiful, Intrepid!” And she was. You could always spot her, twice as big as other sailboats with a perfectly flat deck and sails so high that her mast touched the sky.  She made the lake seem small — the other shore seemed closer when she was out there. There was something about her that changed my perspective on the lake, and hence, on my world. Eventually, she found her way back to salt water, and I believe she’s still available for charter, now out of Rhode Island. 

So why did I name a race of beings in Winter “Intrepids?” I guess because they changed Aster’s perception of his world the way the sailboat changed mine. However, there is nothing about sailboats in Winter, though there is a bit about the ocean, and the association is purely in my head.

Here’s a snippet where Aster hears the word Intrepid for the first time:

 

Confusion was all around me. I thought I was in the hospital, but I wasn’t. The bright lights over me were from a decorative chandelier. The people around me weren’t in white coats, they were in dark business dress.

I sat up. I was in the middle of a large, oval business table. A blue, brown, and white logo on the wall across from me read World Alliance of Intrepids in a circle of stylized images of water, sky, and rocks.

The men and women jumped back, grabbing coffee mugs, staring at me with their mouths wide open as if I’d just interrupted a meeting. I frantically pushed myself up to my knees with a yell, sending laptops flying.

What the fuck?

But I was breathing. I kept sucking in deep breaths as though I couldn’t get enough wonderful air. Unless I was dead. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought of the afterlife as being a big business meeting. What an incredible disappointment. Really?

“Who are you?” The question from a man facing me pierced my panicky brain.

“Aster Lowe,” I gasped out. “Where am I? And what the hell is an Intrepid?”

“Well, we’re supposed to be a secret organization,” the man in front of me said. “May I ask who awakened you?”

 

So that’s a little bit about where my head was last year. I’m really excited about Winter being released– it’s my first book since Depth of Return, which came out almost two years ago (and won its category in the Rainbow Awards. Not that I’m still excited about that or anything). I promise it won’t be that long before another book comes out. I’ve got three books I’m self publishing all lined up. Beyond that… I’m not sure, but there is something in the works!

Thanks for reading!

You can buy Winter HERE

 

 

 

Today’s the day! Winter is available everywhere!

The link to Amazon HERE

And the book trailer HERE

And a little snippet:

 

Chapter One

“I don’t do this, as a rule.” The man’s beautiful eyes, brown with gold flecks that caught the light and almost seemed to move, especially after my second drink, held mine for a moment.

“I don’t do this either,” I said, leaning backward to press my hotel room door closed behind me. Its click sounded solid and satisfying, despite how uncertain I was about having this stranger here. His tall, dark strength attracted me, but the sadness in his fathomless eyes had convinced me to invite him to my room.

I watched him survey the place—gold curtains closed over the dark window, matching gold comforter on the king-sized bed, soft, dark brown rug on the floor, modern art paintings in shades of red on the wall over the small wooden desk. There was an overstuffed chair in one corner. It was all calming, cozy, clean. Plain, by Montreal standards, but fine for a Vermont boy on a budget.

We both saw the pile of products on the desk at the same time. I’d completely forgotten I’d looked through my purchases before going downstairs to the restaurant. I felt my face flame.

“Oh, God.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Those aren’t mine, Vanor. I mean, I bought them, but not for me. I work in an adult store back home. My boss wanted me to pick up some things while I was in Montreal we don’t carry. Just for research purposes. See if our regular customers would be interested.”

“Ah.” Vanor sent me a sideways look through those incredible eyes of his. They’d practically had me on my knees before him down in the hotel bar. I flushed even brighter. Okay, so I’d picked out some things I wouldn’t mind being tried on me…

 

The blurb:

Outwardly happy with his life, inwardly Aster longs for a dom of his own: someone he can trust with his heart, body, and soul. Then while in Montreal, in the midst of a snowstorm, he meets a mysterious man, Vanor, who seems like a dream come true. He gives Aster the safeword ‘winter’ and their night together seems made of magic. But over breakfast the next morning, Vanor literally vanishes before his eyes. Shocked and confused, Aster returns helplessly home to Vermont.

Months later, Vanor appears on his balcony, naked and half-frozen, in the midst of a snowstorm. Shortly after, two men appear and snatch Vanor away—with dire threats of punishment if he escapes again, and Aster soon finds himself dragged into a world most humans are not supposed to know exists…

 

I have finished the book trailer for Winter and it’s posted on the Book Trailer Page on this site! I had sooo much fun working on this one. Give it a watch. (And preorder the book at Less Than Three HERE

Here it is! Winter, the cover! Created by Natasha Snow. I think it’s so elegant, and it really captures the feel of the book.

It’s available for pre-order at Less Than Three Press HERE 

Release date is August 1, 2018, but it will be available in the evening of July 31.

I’m putting the final touches on the book trailer now, so stay tuned…

Here’s the blurb:

Outwardly happy with his life, inwardly Aster longs for a dom of his own: someone he can trust with his heart, body, and soul. Then while in Montreal, in the midst of a snowstorm, he meets a mysterious man, Vanor, who seems like a dream come true. He gives Aster the safeword ‘winter’ and their night together seems made of magic. But over breakfast the next morning, Vanor literally vanishes before his eyes. Shocked and confused, Aster returns helplessly home to Vermont.

Months later, Vanor appears on his balcony, naked and half-frozen, in the midst of a snowstorm. Shortly after, two men appear and snatch Vanor away—with dire threats of punishment if he escapes again, and Aster soon finds himself dragged into a world most humans are not supposed to know exists…

 

Summer hasn’t officially started quite yet, but it feels underway. I can’t believe we’ve been at camp three and a half weeks already. It took me longer to get organized and settled this year because we had some work done inside the camp (washer and drier installed for the first time ever, yeah!) and as always in old buildings, one thing led to another. In short, we had to have most of the camp rewired. We also had some damage to the deck because of a storm. Now the roof needs to be replaced, and the septic system looked at, and…

And for some reason, we’ve decided to get a puppy, which is a little wonderful and scary. She will arrive in two weeks, after we get back from a camping trip to Acadia Nation Park, when she’s old enough to become a Camp Pup. I just really hope the Camp Kitties are okay with it. So I’ve been a little frantic.

I have just finished my first revision of Wings Over Water, which is the draft when I go through it before anybody else has read it and make it presentable for someone else to see. It’s where I figure out what the book turned out to be about, and make sure the ending matches the beginning, and everything works out to mean something. Then it goes to my editor, who will tell me the book isn’t about anything, the ending has nothing to do with the beginning, the whole thing means nothing, and there are a hell of a lot of typos and plot holes big enough to swallow Lake Champlain. Then I cry and moan and carry on before I get to work on the book for real. Sigh. Happens every time.

Notice is almost ready to go now, but I decided to wait until Flights of Dragons is done, too, so I can launch them together.

Winter is definitely coming  August first.

In the mean time, I feel like I’m working crazy hard, harder than I ever did at my day job,and I’ve got nothing to show for it. But I keep telling myself that by the end of this year, I will have four books, eBook and print, published. Two of them brand new, one second edition, and one compilation of older works. And I’ll be able to say, “Wow, I did a lot this year.” That’s my goal, anyway. 

Thanks for reading, and thanks for being patient.

 

Spring is really here at last! Lilacs in bloom. I don’t need to bring any inside because they grow so close to the windows I can smell them from my writing nook.

I am hard at work revising Wings over Water.  It’s so interesting to work with a dragon who isn’t Varian or Justin after all these years. Shad is an interesting guy — he’s a relatively young member of an Elder Dragon clan, elder meaning dragons who were around when dragons first became shifters. Shad is only a hundred years old, and he wants to embrace the modern world, but he gets caught between traditions and his heart.

The big Notice self-publishing project well under way. Notice has an exciting cover and the book is with the proof reader.  Flights of Dragons is with my editor.

Winter, the novel coming from Less Than Three, has a lovely cover and I’ve completed the second round of edits.

And I’ve been working on book trailers for all three books. They will be coming soon, as well as cover releases, all right here!

You can now sign up to follow this blog on my  website home page and get an email when I make a new post. (Please do.)

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Thanks!

All right, it’s going to be a bookish summer for me! As of the end of  April, my novel Winter, coming August 1st from Less Than Three, is edited and looking good. I’m eagerly waiting to see the cover. My husband and I just got back from a four day trip to the Maine Coast, where a lot of Winter is set. I even got some photos of Common Eiders. One of the main characters, Van, is a birder, and these are some of the first birds he shows to his partner, Aster.

The next day, I saw Varian and Huntington from Notice hanging out in a small town. It turned out to be quite the novel tie-in trip.

Notice is happily with proofreaders, an artist is working on the cover, and Flights of Dragons (the compilation of short works) is with my editor. I’m finishing up my rough draft of Wings Over Water. This book has just been so much fun to write. I’m coming up on the ending, and I’m not sure where to stop and where the next book will start.

Next on my marketing to-do list is make book trailers for Winter, Notice, and Flights of Dragons. I haven’t made any for a while, and I enjoy doing it. (And books I’ve made trailers for have sold better.)

Here at home, spring is happening at last. My forsythia is blooming. Yesterday, the temps soared into the 80s. We slept with the windows open last night, and it was wonderful to fall asleep to a chorus of spring peepers and Barred Owls. As I write, it’s raining gently outside my sliding glass door. Two White Throated Sparrows and a Winter Wren are singing, a Yellow Bellied Sapsucker is drumming on the swing set, and Canada Geese are honking down the road on the beaver pond. This is my very favorite time of year. (Well, I really love Vermont in all seasons.)

The power is turned back on at camp, and we have asked our plumber to hook up the water system. Not sure when we’ll move — it depends on the weather. It’s so beautiful here I hate to leave, and so beautiful there, I can’t wait to go. Sigh.