Bishop Takes Knight is a Prism Finalist! #MFRWHooks #MFRWAuthor

I got some amazing news this week! Bishop Takes Knight is a finalist in the prestigious Prism Awards, held by the Futuristic, Fantasy, and Paranormal Chapter of the RWA (the Romance Writers of America). You could have knocked me over with a feather when I got the email! Check out all the finalists here. Let me tell you, I’m in some pretty lofty company there! It’s an honor to be listed among such great authors and their stories.

That’s definitely been the carrot prompting me to work harder to finish the next installment of the series, Bishop’s Gambit, in time to release late summer/early fall.

Let me share a snippet of Bishop Takes Knight with you here. In it, Rhett is lunching with her old college roommate, Em. The topic of Rhett’s current state of poverty comes up:

“I’m not marrying Tommy.”

This time, a single eyebrow arched upward. “Has he asked?”

“He wasn’t serious. He was drunk at the time.”

“My dear, that’s the only time Tommy is serious. You should have accepted him.”

“As amusing as Tommy is, I’m rather off drunkards at the moment. Besides, I can’t marry someone for the sake of financial security.”

“I don’t see why not.”

Like most people who didn’t need money, Em had no real concept what it was like to live without it. I hadn’t either, before I discovered I was dead broke. I could have taken the sanctuary my mother offered, but I didn’t care for the price tag. I had a hard time believing her love of status and wealth hadn’t been a huge factor in the decisions my father had made, even as he’d kept up the pretense that everything was all right. Aloud, I said I didn’t blame her for my father’s death, but in my heart of hearts, I did.

Em continued, unconscious of her ignorance. “Women have been doing it for centuries. Not just for the money, but for power, too. Look at Cleopatra.”

“You realize that didn’t end well for her.”

“Didn’t it?” Em opened her eyes wide and then shrugged. “The point is, you shouldn’t turn your nose up at the idea. Don’t you ever want to get married?”

“Not to someone I don’t love.” I spoke with complete, uncomplicated sincerity.

“Oh, Rhett.” Em gave me her genuine smile, not the sexy little moue she usually made. “I never would have pegged you for a romantic. Love is so over rated.”

 

This post is part of the Book Hooks blog hop, so if you’d like to check out other fun excerpts in the hop–go to this link below: 

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Does That Job Offer Come with a Pay Raise? Bishop Takes Knight #MFRWHooks

I’m so pleased to be sharing an excerpt of Bishop Takes Knight here today! This story is the first in the Redclaw Origins series. Set in the 1950s, it explores how Redclaw Security came into being. See, there have always been shifters out there: dragons, phoenixes, griffins… the stuff of legends. But after the advent of developing nuclear technology during WW2, dormant shifter genes in the general population became activated, resulting in a new wave of shifters: lions and tigers and bears, so to speak.

In this scene, Rhett has just helped take down an intruder into Redclaw’s offices, and is discussing the aftermath with her boss, Ryker. Be sure to read to the end to get the link for the blog hop and see who else is sharing book hooks today!

Excerpt:

“Sir, was it my imagination, or did this man start to…?” I wasn’t sure how to complete my sentence. Perhaps I was guilty of reading too many pulp magazines. They made a nice change from the classics, but they had a sad tendency to influence my dreams. Could they affect my waking thoughts as well?

No, I know what I saw.

Ryker didn’t make it easy for me, merely lifting his own questioning eyebrow.

“Just as he was about to attack me, his nails became claws and his face sprouted fur.” Before Ryker could call me crazy or tell me I was imaging things, I said in a quiet but firm voice, “I saw him change.”

“Ah. I was hoping you hadn’t noticed that.” With a heavy sigh, he went back to the sideboard and poured whiskey into two tumblers, returning to the desk to hand one to me.

I hesitated before accepting the glass. Given my father’s fate, more than most people, I had good reason to avoid alcohol. Yet, whiskey seemed like a better choice than tea right now, especially since tea didn’t seem to be forthcoming. When Ryker had taken his seat again, I continued, “I also noticed when you pressed the switch under Miss Climpson’s desk, you seemed confident Billy no longer posed a threat. Did you turn some kind of dampening field on him? What did he want? Was he after the mechanical spider?”

My questions caught Ryker as he took a sip and he choked. Setting the glass down, he looked at me with mild astonishment. “My word, Miss Bishop. In another century, they’d have burned you at the stake.” À propos of nothing, he added, “What do you go by? Henrietta?”

My eyes narrowed. In my experience, you couldn’t trust bosses who asked for personal information. “My friends call me Rhett,” I spoke each word with careful deliberation.

He nodded. If he sensed my wariness, he had chosen to ignore it. “Very nice, indeed. It suits you.” Something of my expression must have registered with him because he held up a hand. “Please believe me when I say I have no designs on your person. It’s just that I feel you’re wasted in a secretarial position, and I don’t want to keep ‘Miss Bishoping’ you. Unless, of course, you prefer it.”

“You may call me Bishop, if it’s easier.”

He seemed delighted by this. “Like I would Russo or the others? Except for Miss Climpson. She could never be anything other than that.” He leaned forward with a conspiratorial smile. “At least to her face.”

I coughed to conceal a small laugh. No one called Miss Climpson ‘Climmy’ in her presence. In fact, I’d chosen to do so when confronting the intruder solely to alert Miss Climpson I was aware something was wrong, had she been able to hear me.

Ryker picked up his tumbler again, staring into its amber depths. “How would you like to be a field agent, Bishop?”

Bishop Take Knight is a Top Pick at The Romance Reviews and a Crowned Heart of Excellence recipient at InD’Tale Magazine and has been nominated for a RONE Award! Bishop Takes Knight was recently voted Best Paranormal/SFF Romance in the 2020 New England Reader’s Choice Awards, too. So if you like light paranormal romance and bantering couples, check it out!

Follow the link to go to other blogs participating in Book Hooks this week and check out some great reads! 

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Bishop Takes Knight is a RONE Nominee–And I Need Your Help!

I hate asking for votes.

It feels pushy, for one. It also reminds me that being relatively unknown, my chances of winning anything based on my following is slim to none. But this time is a little different.

See, Bishop Takes Knight has been nominated for a RONE award! Voting in the subgenre division for Long Paranormal Romance opens Monday, May 18th and runs through Sunday, May 24th (though I’m told not to wait until the last minute as some people have been caught by time differences). The only way Bishop Takes Knight can advance to the finals is if it receives enough reader votes! So here I am, asking for your help to get to the next round…

Here are the instructions from InD’Tale Magazine:

It is extremely important that you let all your readers and fans know!  We would hate to think a superior quality book lost only because people were unaware of the time limit. Also, make sure that they understand they MUST be registered on our website at www.indtale.com in order to vote. Once they register, if they haven’t already, they will be required to click the verification link sent to them via email. If they do not verify their registration with this link, they will be unable to vote. This is very important to help ensure that the voting is fair and maintains the high-quality standards required for this top-tier award.

Once you’re logged in, you can go to the 2020 RONE Awards in the drop-down menu at the top right corner and scroll to the category (or date) Paranormal-Long. Or go to this link directly!

So you see, your vote is crucial to getting to the next step! I hope if you’ve read and enjoyed Bishop Takes Knight, you’ll consider voting for it in the Paranormal-Long category. If you haven’t read it, but you like my works, you can still vote for it, or spread the news among your friends. Your support is deeply appreciated!

 

Stress Busting Book Festival and Giveaway!

Stress got the best of you in these uncertain times? Escape inside these books and
watch your stress disappear at N. N. Light’s Book Heaven Stress Busting Book
Festival. 43 books featured plus a chance to win one of the following:

Enter to win a $50 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
Enter to win a $50 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
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Enter to win a $10 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card

I’m thrilled to be a part of this event. My book, Ghost of a Chance, will be
featured on May 20th! Wait until you read my cure for winter doldrums. Fated mates snowed in together with danger all around? You won’t want to miss it!

Bookmark this festival and tell your friends!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

My Comfort Reads During COVID-19

I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hard time focusing on anything right now. I’ve mentioned in other posts the difficulty I’ve had writing, and how I can’t watch anything new, relying instead on old tried-and-true formulas.

This lack of focus has been especially true for me when it comes to reading. I normally read anywhere from 2-3 books a week. Now, it’s a challenge to finish anything. At first I blamed the books I attempted to read–but after I DNF the seventh book in a row, I realized the stories themselves were not to blame. I needed to apply the same criteria to my reading that I did to my television watching: something familiar enough not to hurt me but still powerful enough to engage. In short, my comfort reads.

When compiling this list, it occurred to me that many of my favorite comfort reads are set in the past. I’m not sure why that is. I enjoy period pieces as a rule (hence my love for Agent Carter and The Miss Fisher Mysteries), but I don’t think that’s the entire story when it comes to comfort reads. I suspect it’s because the setting is different enough that it takes me out of my current existence, and that’s one of the important criteria for a comfort read for me. I like crime dramas because I like the mystery and the satisfaction of solving the puzzle. But also because it bears no resemblance to my daily life. I can’t watch House because as compelling as the drama and the actors were, I found myself competing with the residents to solve the medical mystery before the end of the episode. Too much like the day job, thank you very much.

I think it’s also because one of the beauties of many period pieces is that the stakes are often much lower. There’s something soothing about having the biggest trauma in your life being cut dead at a social gathering or having your sister run off to Gretna Green. After struggling to read anything from my enormous TBR stack, I went back to my old favorites. And I noticed two things when I did this. By sliding back into the well-worn groove of reading, I hit that quiet zone that not only allowed me to enjoy newer material as well as old favorites, but I found myself writing again, too.

If you’re having a hard time being creative right now, I suggest turning off social media, the news, and the television. Pick up a book and read. Reading is a form of meditation, and I believe it primes the brain for writing.

And although comfort reads are intensely personal, (and what one person finds comforting is not necessarily the same for another) I thought I’d share mine. No doubt you’ve heard of or read most of them yourself, but I hope I can introduce you to some new reads.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I know. I know. I can see some of you backpedaling away right now while others are nodding and smiling. But hear me out. The works of Jane Austen are probably the cornerstone of the Regency Romance Genre. I recommend going to the source to find out why the tropes are so compelling. While I enjoy all of Austen’s books, Elizabeth Bennett is my favorite of her heroines, and Darcy is the Original Grumpy Hero who is captivated by a Sunshine Heroine. Not to mention, but P&P has been adapted into movies and mini-series again and again, so not only do you get the pleasure of reading this book, but you can watch the story in all its many forms. I highly recommend the 1995 BBC mini-series with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. I think due to the length of the series, this is one of the most faithful adaptations of the book. There is, of course, the famous scene where Firth as Darcy walks up in a wet linen shirt from having taken a dip in a pond to find Elizabeth unexpectedly a guest in his home. For many, this is the quintessential adaptation. And I love Ehle’s portrayal of Elizabeth–it’s probably my favorite. Ehle is also reading P&P from quarantine on her Instagram account right now. So worth watching! 

Then there is the 2005 movie version with Keira Knightly and Matthew MacFadyen. I think they did a bang up job of condensing the book into movie form. The cinematography is breathtaking. But it is the chemistry between the leads that is truly compelling to watch. So in addition to being able to read Austen’s delicious words, you can immerse yourself in these lovely adaptations.

 

For a complete 180 on subject matter, the next comfort read I’m recommending is the In Death Series by J.D. Robb. I can hear you now: What are you smoking, McKenna? How can a series with the word “death” in the title be a comfort read? Trust me, they can. In part because the good guys win. I don’t know about you, but these days, I need to know the good guys are going to win. Unlike most of the books on my list here, the In Death books are futuristic gritty crime stories featuring Lt. Eve Dallas and her enigmatic billionaire husband, Roarke. Robb (aka Nora Roberts) has produced something like fifty books in this series (while also writing under the Roberts name–her productivity is amazing), so you have a LOT of books to read.

When I was going through the worst of my personal losses, I read one of these books every 24 hours. The crime pulls you in from the first page, but it’s the characters that bring me back again and again. My favorite television shows feature teams and I love team dynamics and found families. When I finished the series, I turned around and started it all over again. It’s not without some trauma at times but overall, you know the key players will be okay. (The series is ongoing, so it may shock me at some point…)

My hope is one day to create a series as compelling. I know, reach for the stars, right? I want the same kinds of things: the team dynamics, the found family aspects, the push-me pull-you between the leads. I love case-based stories too, and by setting them in the Redclaw Universe, I can follow a team of Redclaw agents as they solve crimes, as opposed to couple-based stories in the current Redclaw Security series (each of which can be read as a standalone). I doubt most people would consider the In Death series a comfort read, but there is great comfort in knowing what to expect when you pick up a book. I’d watch the hell out of a Dallas and Roarke series too.

But in general, I reach for period pieces when I need a comfort read.

The Amelia Peabody books by Elizabeth Peters. I love these books. I tend to re-read them a lot, especially the first three in the series. These are truly delightful stories. Amelia Peabody is bluntly outspoken and forthright at a time when women were supposed to be decorative, delicate creatures. Her inability to see the humor in her own statements or actions adds to the hilarity, and in the irascible Radcliffe Emerson, we find the only man that is her match. Peabody dashes in where angels fear to tread, usually brandishing a pistol and packing a first aid kit that would allow her to perform minor surgery, if called upon. I have a deep love for archaeology, and the details of Emerson’s work fascinate me, though very little progress is made on the digs due to the frequent nature of criminal activities that must be investigated each season.

A word of  warning: on a recent re-read, I became aware of a degree of fat-shaming I hadn’t picked up on before. It doesn’t come up often (and I suspect it’s generational; my mother was the same) but it’s disappointing and I can see where it may be enough to put some off the series. It’s dimmed my love of these books somewhat, and yet I still reach for these books when I need to be comforted. For the life of me, I don’t know why they haven’t been made into movies. We NEED Amelia Peabody on our screens!

Make Way for Lucia by E.F. Benson. Another period series, this is quite different from the recommended reads in that the stories center around Mrs. Emmaline Lucas (“Lucia” to her friends) who is a well-to-do middle-aged woman in England in the 1920s and 30s. Lucia is a force of nature: vain, opinionated, and pretentious. She pretends a fluency in Italian with her platonic friend “Georgie” Pillson that she doesn’t possess, claims a scholarly interest in Greek and Latin, practices Mozart on the sly so she can pretend she’s never seen the piece before when asked to play, and in general is the Queen of Riseholme, the village in which she resides at the beginning of her story. Halfway through the series, having vanquished all her foes in one small English town, she moves to Tilling, where she finds a more formidable adversary in Miss Elizabeth Mapp. Like any true Tillingnite, we wait with baited breath to see who will win the current round in this clash of the Titans. Will Mapp expose Lucia’s Italian deficiencies? Will Lucia retaliate when Mapp orchestrates the rejection of her painting to the Tilling Art Society? Newcomer Lucia is pushy and irritating, and some long to be out from under her yoke. At the same time, life would be terribly dull without her. As reviewer Phoebe-Lou Adams for the Atlantic once said, “Nothing Lucia and her enemy, Miss Mapp, did was ever of the slightest importance, but they did it with Napoleonic strategy, Attilian ferocity, and Satanic motive. It is a sad fact that Benson borrowers usually become non-returners.”

You don’t have to read the whole series–you can jump right in with Mapp and Lucia to get at the heart of the conflict–for it is not until these two meet that Lucia finally faces a worthy opponent. But to appreciate the series in delightful detail, I’d strongly recommend reading it from the very beginning.

Another series I adore (but also has some problematic issues, particularly with stereotypical portrayals of Jewish characters) is the Lord Peter Wimsey series by Dorothy L. Sayers. Written in the 1920s and 30s, we follow the adventures of the younger son of the Duke of Denver, who finds his brains and his talent for playing the fool in public advantageous in solving murders. We also see the character growth of Lord Peter over the series, from a dilettante solving murders for his own amusement to the man who falls violently in love with mystery novelist Harriet Vane while she is on trial for murder–and he must act to find the real killer to save her from the death penalty. The Harriet Vane books are among the best in the series, and you can start with Strong Poison if you like. The only non-Harriet Vane book that I re-read for the sheer pleasure of it is Murder Must Advertise, which in addition to a murder mystery, is a searing insight into the workings of the old-style advertising firms of the 1930s.

Gaudy Night remains one of my all-time favorite books. It contains one of the most powerful scenes of sexual awareness I’ve ever read, and I point to it as the book that taught me what healthy adult relationships should look like. I wanted what Harriet Vane had with Lord Peter, and I refused to settle for less. When I recognized the same qualities in my husband, I knew I had a keeper. 🙂

The 1987 BBC series starring Edward Petherbridge and Harriet Walter is a treat, if you can find it anywhere online. 

But I can hear some of you hoping for something a little more contemporary. Well, I adore the London Celebrities series by Lucy Parker. I love all these books, but Pretty Face may be my favorite. As a former actress (on a very small scale) I love stories about the theater, so I was drawn to the series by the first book, Act Like It. Parker does Grumpy Hero and Sunshine Heroines extremely well, which is another plus for me. It’s not always easy to make a hero justifiably grumpy without also making him an asshole, but Parker handles this conundrum with ease.

I also appreciate the fact her characters face real challenges to being together–not the sort of misunderstandings that make me want to clack heads together and tell the leads to get over themselves. There’s character growth over the course of each book, another factor that places these stories in the re-read stack. And I’m all about the slow-burn romances! It’s also happy-making to have characters from one story turn up in another because they all inhabit the same universe. But it’s the satisfying resolution to each installment in the series that places these books on the comfort read list for me.

I could go on. I could list the horse and dog books of my youth, or the Dick Francis mysteries, always a good way to spend an afternoon. There are series that I love (like the Hidden Legacy books by Ilona Andrews, or the Psy-Changeling books by Nalini Singh) that I’ll re-read given the chance, but they don’t quite make the comfort read list. I’ve read some really outstanding books this year, and it feels odd not to mention them here, but you can love a book without it being a comfort read, if you know what I mean. Comfort reads are so personal, so individualized, and I find it interesting that my needs during COVID-19 are somewhat different than my usual levels of stress. What made my list might not make yours. But I hope you enjoy these suggestions, particularly if some of these stories are new to you.

What are YOUR comfort reads? I’d love to know what you choose and why! Make your case. Perhaps you’ll convince me to try out your comfort read. 🙂

 

Dragon Myst by Kerry Adrienne Book Tour

In this fantasy romance, the hero is the heroine!
Dragon Myst by Kerry Adrienne is coming April 17th!

RESERVE IT NOW:
US → https://amzn.to/2wQRmhf
UK → https://amzn.to/2Q6o7xW
CA → https://amzn.to/38IqtcO
AU → https://amzn.to/2Q5EquY

BLURB:

In every good quest, the hero succeeds. In every great quest, that hero is the heroine…

And for this heroine, finding The Last Druid and recovering the Orb of Oriste will be personal.

Myst Goodwind, trainer of horses and daughter of the Queen, isn’t content to watch the dragons steal the magic that once belonged to her world. As the beasts continue to drain life from the land, Myst sets out on a dangerous journey to reclaim what belongs to Oriste.

Together with a gambling fairy, a cranky centaur, and the annoying guard sent by the Queen, Myst will search for the Last Druid and the shards of the Orb of Oriste, which once held the essence of all the magic in the world. Along the way she’ll encounter creatures she never dreamed of, creatures she’s feared since she was a child, and the very same dragons that harness the magic she seeks to restore.

And though the dangers are ever-present, it will be the truths that Myst comes face-to-face with along the way that shake the foundation of everything she holds dear.

About Kerry

USA Today bestselling author Kerry Adrienne loves history, science, music and art. She’s a mom to more cats than children and she loves live music, traveling, and staying up all night. Because…vampires.

She writes romance (paranormal, m/m, historical, time travel, and more), science fiction, and fantasy.

In addition to writing books, she’s also a college instructor, artist, costumer, editor, and bad guitar player.

FIND KERRY ONLINE!
Amazon → https://amzn.to/2Q6pcEw
BookBub → http://bit.ly/2vWFFSK
Facebook → http://bit.ly/2YsifAT
Goodreads → http://bit.ly/2vXa1EA
Instagram → http://bit.ly/2Q29men
Pinterest → http://bit.ly/2w9njOB
Twitter → http://bit.ly/2VKegms
Website → https://www.kerryadrienne.com

Love is in the Air in February, and Bishop Takes Knight is on Sale! #MFRWHooks

Have you been waiting for the right time to delve into the Redclaw Universe? Well, now may be your best shot!

Bishop Takes Knight (Redclaw Origins Book 1) is now available for just 99 cents across all platforms! Meet former socialite Henrietta (“Rhett”) Bishop as she accepts a job in desperation with the mysterious Redclaw Security firm and gets more than she bargained for! When she’s assigned to locate the elusive Dr. Peter Knight, all her skills as an independent woman in 1955 New York City are put to the test as they evade a shifter gang, deal with past lovers, and engage with the enigmatic and dangerous Rian Stirling–who happens to be searching for the same artifacts as Bishop and Knight. It’s Nick and Nora (The Thin Man) meets Warehouse-13 in this book declared Top Pick by The Romance Reviews and given a Crowned Heart of Excellence by InD’Tale Magazine, as well as a strong review by Kirkus.

Bishop Takes Knight is available for just 99 cents for a limited time from:

Amazon    Barnes and Noble     Apple     Kobo

 

Looking for more great reads this month? Check out the other stories in the BookHooks Hop! 

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Why I’m taking time from my WIP to write fanfic…

I cut my writing chops in fandom. Before I even knew what fanfic was, I wrote it. Back then, there were no online archives, no message boards. I wrote stories about the continuing adventures of my favorite characters because books were magic and there was nothing more I wanted to do than to spend time with the characters that brought joy to my life. I wrote for an audience of one because I had to. It didn’t matter to me if anyone ever read the stories or not. In fact, in some cases, I preferred they remain all mine.

Fast forward many years to my adulthood: I’d put aside writing stories as something children did and boxed up my creative self to move on with the business of life. Becoming a writer was an impractical fantasy and I needed to earn a living. I thought losing your passion, that creative spark, was simply part of growing up. It wasn’t until I went through a major transition in my life that I discovered online fanfiction archives. I’d been searching for something to be passionate about, having taken a new job in a new city where I knew no one. I had things I did for fun, but nothing that drove me with the kind of dedication I saw in others. Then I fell in love with a new television show and found out there were thousands of stories about the characters I loved! I completely immersed myself in fandom, and after months of reading everything I could get my hands on, tentatively, I began writing my own fic again.

Oh man, it was bad. I was so out of practice. And at first, I thought I had to write an entire story from start to finish in one setting. I know, weird, right? I mean, intellectually, I understood War and Peace wasn’t written in a single evening, but without understanding the basic mechanics of outlining, I’d sit down at the keyboard and start pounding out words until I had a finished story. I didn’t get much sleep those days, and I wrote nothing over 5-7 K words.

Then one day I realized not only did I not have to write the entire story in one sitting, I also didn’t have to write the story in a linear fashion, either! What a liberation that was! I could write the scene I pictured the most strongly at the time it was freshest in my mind and worry about how all the scenes tied together in the end. Out of sequence writing allowed me to write my first 50 K story, and after that, I was hard-pressed to write anything shorter. It also freed me from writing boring filler scenes that got the characters from one place to another–now I was a movie director shooting only the most relevant scenes. I was a pantser, only I didn’t know it. Writing in this fashion was natural for me,  and I wrote the equivalent of a novella a month for years.

A million words of fanfic later, I began writing original stories for publication. My writing style changed again, in part because I couldn’t take the writing shortcuts with world building and characterization that fanfic allows. I had to do more plotting, and my writing became more linear again. My productivity also slowed down tremendously. Comments are the currency of fanfic, but when you’re producing original works and asking people to pay for them, your standards are much higher. My output slowed dramatically as I pushed myself to write better stories, and it was harder for me to meet these new standards. My Inner Critic grew stronger and more discouraging as I put more and more pressure on myself to succeed.

One of the first decisions I made when I began publishing my own fiction was to stop writing fanfic. In part because the challenges of original fiction were more fascinating to me now, but it was also simply a matter of time. I only had so much time to devote to writing–I couldn’t afford to “waste” it.

So when I recently came across an unfinished fanfic sitting on my hard drive, it surprised me when I began tinkering with it again. I’m at the halfway point on my WIP. If I push through, I can finish it in a month or two, and polish it into a finalized form by late spring/early summer. The last thing I should do is leave it and go off to play in an old sandbox like a little kid, right?

Wrong.

I think that’s exactly what I need to do.

Lately, I’ve been struggling a bit to find the joy in life. To find purpose in a world increasingly depressing and terrifying to me. To feel that it matters if I tell my stories or not. And I think this is the right time to set aside my WIP, to let it simmer on a back burner for a bit, while I take my shovel and pail and go build sandcastles on the beach. Yes, a terrible mixing of metaphors, I know, but I don’t care.

The fun of fanfic is the lack of limitations. As long as you are true to the characters (and if you are writing an AU, you don’t even have to be that true), anything goes. I want to bang out my story without my Inner Critic hanging over my shoulder telling me I can’t do this or I shouldn’t do that. I want to post my sandcastle story as an offering to the fandom I love, knowing it will most likely be accepted with joy even if it is the most lopsided sandcastle you could ever see. And even if it is completely ignored, it will have still brought me great pleasure to have written it in the first place, just like it did for my fifteen-year-old self when I ran out of Star Trek stories to read.

I want to do it for the sheer fun of it, and Lord knows, there is a great lack of fun in the world right now.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll learn something about having fun with my stories that I can bring back to the WIP again. It’s a win-win, either way.

So what are you doing that brings you joy today?

#MFRWHooks: Bishop Takes Knight is only 99 cents!

I’m participating in some great events coming up in February, and as such, I’ve lowered the price on Bishop Takes Knight! For the first time ever, this story is only 99 cents for a limited time. Bishop Takes Knight is the origin story for my Redclaw universe, and was named a Top Pick by The Romance Reviews, and given the Crowned Heart of Excellence by InD’Tale Magazine. Even Kirkus reviews liked it!

Now you can grab the first book in the Redclaw Origins series for only 99 cents! If you like light paranormal romance and lots of banter, this book is for you. Think Nick and Nora meets WH-13. 

Blurb: New York, 1955. Former socialite Henrietta (“Rhett”) Bishop, destitute after her father gambles away the family fortune, takes a job at Redclaw Security. But Redclaw is no ordinary operation. Part detective firm and part enforcement agency, Redclaw regulates matters involving the growing population of shifters who have emerged since the onset of the nuclear age.

Peter Knight is a nuclear scientist shattered by the death of his wife. Blacklisted by the government and scientific organizations, he drowns his sorrows while searching for the people behind his wife’s murder.

When Rhett is assigned to recruit Knight, their meeting is more than either bargained for—a rival organization will do anything to secure Knight for themselves. Following a lead to locate a missing cache of alien technology stolen from Redclaw, Rhett is thrown back into her previous glittering life with Knight as her pretend boyfriend. But when someone from the past turns up to start a bidding war on the artifacts, Bishop and Knight wind up in a fight for their very lives.

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The 2019 Paranormal Romance Guild’s Reviewer’s Choice Awards is open for Voting!

I’m so excited! Bishop Takes Knight has been nominated for the Best Romance/Paranormal/Fantasy/Vampires & Shifters category in the PRG’s Reviewer’s Choice Awards! I’m my story is among such great books for consideration!

 

Voting opens today, Jan 10th, and runs through next Friday, Jan 24th. I hope you’ll consider voting for Bishop Takes Knight! It’s a long list of books to scroll through, with a large number of categories, but I appreciate your vote!

Here’s the link–which is a great shopping list for future buys, I might add! 

2019 Paranormal Romance Guild’s Reviewer’s Choice Awards Ballot

Eeeep! I had the wrong link, but it’s been corrected now, thanks to an eagle-eyed reader!