Fantasy Romance
Yesterday was release day for my debut novel.
For those of you giving it a chance, thank you for taking the time to look at my work and giving me the opportunity to at least try to entertain you. It’s what all those years of work is about.
And if you get a chance, I would really appreciate it if you’d stop over and leave a review. Reviews are hugely important for indie authors. It’s how we get our work noticed, and how we get Amazon to take us seriously.
And thank you again.
I am super excited for launch day!
In celebration, I wrote a short story in the same world as to Love a Prince. I hope you enjoy it!
Gabriel leaned on his cane as he scanned the angry ocean. Its waves rose and fell like daggers as it smashed the splinters of what had been a ship against the rocky shore.
His leg ached from his exertions, but Gabriel ignored the pain. If he still wanted to still walk in ten summers, he needed to push himself now.
Anger stabbed him, but he shoved it away. Self-pity did nothing to change his circumstances. He may no longer serve Dracor as he once had, but his mental faculties were sharp, he still rode horses, and he had his faith. The ghoul hadn’t taken everything from him.
He glanced down at his damaged leg.
But it had taken enough.
A cry whispered on the bitter wind, and Gabriel glanced at the seagulls. Their plaintive calls washed over him, and a frown pinched his brow as he heard the sound again. More insistent this time if fainter.
He’d listened to the old legends about sirens luring sailors to their deaths on these rocks, but he paid them little heed. The waters around Emerald Point were treacherous, and the number of shipwrecks had more to do with inexperienced captains than mysterious demon women.
The cry came again, and Gabriel picked his way across the rocky beach and around the shattered planks deposited by a dozen or more shipwrecks. The ever-changing tide and jagged rocks made it impossible to know if the freshly splintered boards were from an old wreck or a recent one. Not that it mattered. In the rough waters of Emerald Point, no one ever survived a shipwreck.
Yet, the cry came again. Fainter now, more plaintive.
Gabriel cursed himself. He should go home, brew himself a pot of coffee, and forget whatever creature was trying to lure him. He’d fallen into a trap once, and it had cost him his leg.
But he was a Knight of Valor. Even if he no longer served on active duty, he couldn’t ignore the cries of someone who needed his help.
Limping across the beach toward the noise, Gabriel discovered a pile of boards hidden between rocks taller than a man.
The cry came again. Louder. Sharper.
It sounded close now, most likely under the boards.
The cry of a child, scared and alone. He’d fallen for it once. He’d fall for it now. He could make no other choice.
Setting aside his cane, he swallowed back the sour taste of fear and cleared away the boards. Carefully, lest one fall and crush the babe. If there was a babe.
The crying grew more urgent as if infant, or whatever it was, realized someone was coming.
Shoving aside the last board, Gabriel discovered a tiny child swaddled in a strange iridescent fabric. Tears stained the infant’s chubby cheeks, and she had strange golden hair that glittered in the morning sun. He leaned closer to her, and she opened her eyes. They glowed an unnatural shade of green and were larger than a cat’s eyes.
Gabriel stumbled back, and his bad leg crumpled.
He sprawled into the sand, water and rocks.
He cursed as he pushed himself up to sitting and brushed off a vine of seaweed.
The child cried again, her plaintive whimpers piercing his heart.
He had no idea what she was. Maybe the offspring of the very sirens he’d dismissed. Her pointed ears whispered elven, but he’d seen plenty of elves, and none of them had eyes like that.
Using his cane, he shoved himself back to his feet.
The infant whimpered as she stared at him with her inhuman eyes.
Gabriel clutched the amulet of Dracor he wore around his neck.
He sensed no evil from the child, but she was frightened, hungry, and alone. Whatever she was, he couldn’t just leave her to be carried off my wolves or worse.
Steadying himself, he limped back over to her. While dirt, sand, and seaweed clung to him, her blanket remained both dry and unsoiled.
He frowned as he reached for her, and the press of magic pushed at his hands before dissolving. Some sort of protection bubble. He’d seen them before, but never anything powerful enough to withstand a shipwreck.
Lifting the tiny infant, he held her close. She shivered and pressed against him, nudging his chest as she searched for food.
“Sorry little one, can’t help you there.”
He stroked her glittering hair, then took his canteen from his pocket. After saying a prayer to Dracor, Gabriel offered the child the water. She drank, her tiny face screwed up as she realized it wasn’t milk, but too hungry to refuse.
After she’d drunk her fill, Gabriel took off his jacket and fashioned it into a sling. Tucking the child into it, he tied his jacket in place, holding her snug against his chest. Her strange eyes closed, and she drifted to sleep.
Gabriel hoisted himself back to his feet. Thoughts of finding a wet nurse and figuring out how to care for the strange child until he could find her parents filled his thoughts, and he barely needed his cane as he walked across the rock-strewn beach to his cottage.
Andromeda kicked the dirt and crossed her arms over her thin chest.
It wasn’t fair.
She was bored and lonely. A dog would fix both.
Of course her grandmother didn’t want her to have one. She never wanted Andromeda to have anything nice. Laverra was still mad Andromeda had survived being born and angrier yet Andromeda’s father protected his daughter.
Andromeda glanced back at the upper windows of the gothic manor house looming behind her. It blocked out the faint trickle of sunlight that escaped the overcast sky and shrouded the grounds in gloom. The wards around the compound protected Andromeda from the outside evil, but they did nothing to protect her from what was inside.
She’d seen only six summers, but she already knew one day soon she’d have to protect herself.
Another reason for her to have a dog.
Her grandmother would be resting now, preferring to sleep during the day when her magic was weakest.
Andromeda snorted. Magic didn’t care if it was day or night, but her grandmother’s magic was fading. Laverra had deviated too far from Uzakiel’s path, and Rashalee had snared her in a web of lies, greed, and envy. The old woman would soon need a powerful blood sacrifice to appease Uzakiel.
She’d go after Andromeda’s father.
Andromeda wouldn’t let that happen, nor would her dog once she got one. Her father was the only one ever kind to her even if his studies absorbed so much of his time that he didn’t notice her most days.
She kicked the dirt again.
One of the human guards spotted her and hurried away, pretending he hadn’t noticed her.
Andromeda was used to it. She’d always been an ugly child with her too-big blue eyes and golden ringlets. But her father loved her, and people were nice to her because they didn’t want to anger Lord Wrakar.
One day, they’d be nice to her because they didn’t want to anger her.
The thought cheered her as she skipped down to the crypts. Dysentery had killed two human servants earlier in the week, and her father’s apprentices had laid out the bodies in the prepatory chambers with the flesh-eating beetles. Her father had no work for zombies at the moment, and after another week or so, one of her father’s apprentices would raise them for kitchen duties.
Fresh skeletons made the best house staff, and the apprentices needed the practice.
Andromeda liked the skeleton staff better than the human one. The skeletons never called her ugly, her father awful, or her dead mother stupid. And they always did what she told them.
Her grandmother wished Andromeda would be as well-behaved as the skeletons. Laverra could keep wishing.
Sitting on the edge of the mausoleum, Andromeda swung her legs. The crypts were quiet, like they always were. Like the manor house was. And the courtyards. And the workrooms.
She blew a golden curl from her eyes. Sometimes, she wished people would laugh. Smile. Even yelling would be better than the constant silence.
She wanted a dog. Needed it.
The crypts were situated in the most ancient parts of the family compound, and their family was one of the oldest in Oskelez. Andromeda wondered how old the bones moldering in the crypt were.
A smile teased over her lips as she thought of a way to ease her boredom.
Magic filled her, and she sunk it into the ground. It filtered over the bones of servants, then past the dust of her ancestors. Their presence intensified her own magic, and she giggled as a surge of power washed through her.
Harnessing it, Andromeda pushed the magic deeper. Burial sites from long forgotten wars lay further beneath the crypt. Deeper yet were the bones of peasants from a failed uprising.
Sweat beaded on Andromeda’s brow as she gathered the power of the dead to her, bolstering her magic and delving deeper.
Past the bones of noble knights and valiant priests who served gods she didn’t know. Deeper yet to the dust of slaves who’d built Oskelez and the bones of their masters.
The masters.
What is the seven hells were these creatures?
Things of nightmare. Things of…
Wait. Were those the bones of a dog?
A smile lit Andromeda’s face as she ripped the magic from the ancient dead surrounding the dog and funneled it into the beast.
Sweat trickled down her cheek as the dead fought her, resisted her.
She balled her tiny fists and locked her jaw. She was a necromancer of clan Xyrenia.
The. Dead. Would. Obey!
She tore the magic from them and slammed it into the dog. Her dog.
The ground beneath the crypt shook, the dry earth cracking and tearing as a howl ripped through the silent afternoon and echoed off the magic wards.
Bone paws the size of caldrons punched through the ground, followed by two large heads and a massive body. The creature of nightmare stood taller than a man, and it tossed back both heads and howled.
Red pinpricks flickered in its eye sockets as it turned toward Andromeda.
She crossed her arms and waited.
The abomination studied her then lowered both of its heads to the ground at her feet.
Andromeda clapped her hands together in delight.
“I’ll name you Orthul, and we’re going to be the best of friends.”
She skipped back to the house, her new companion at her heels.
If you liked this story, you might like to check out a free copy of my debut novel, To Love a Prince.
I am very excited to share the cover of my first romance novel with all of you, and here it is!
What you don’t trust can’t betray you, but it can still break your heart.
Haunted by a tragedy he couldn’t prevent and hounded by a duty he never wanted, Crown Prince Eli of Tamryn is a cold shell of a man with a stone for a heart. But, whether his subjects like it or not, he will soon be their king. All he needs is to ascend the throne is the Dragon God’s blessing and the approval of the Dragon Church.
There’s only one small problem: the god is silent, and the church wants him dead. Well, there is one other problem—the slightly confusing matter of how he somehow acquired a slave girl who wheels and deals with everything and everyone, no matter what the cost, to win her freedom.
When Eli uncovers a plot to seize the throne, driven by a forbidden cult of dark worship, he must protect a church that hates him and a god he thinks has forsaken him. Duty runs headlong into the newly awakened needs of his heart, and with treachery before him and enslavement behind, no choice is good.
Old secrets reveal new lies, and betrayal will bring a man, a crown, and a kingdom to the very brink of war.
If you’re interested, you can get an advance reader copy here. Yes, that’s a free copy of the book. All I hope you’ll consider doing in return is leaving me an honest review.
As you may have noticed over the weekend, my website was under construction. You may have also noticed that there are no discernible changes this week. At least I didn’t lose everything. Which at one point, I thought I had.
How’d I get to the point of making up new curse words about a WordPress theme?
It started with me reading up about how to make an author website look more professional. I learned there are a variety of “author themes” you’re supposed to be able buy, load into WordPress, and they make the site look better while being easy to use.
Stop laughing.
I then read a well-respected website that had video tutorials to show you how to upgrade your website in 30 minutes.
Seriously, stop laughing.
I set aside two hours for the process, thinking it would take a normal person twice as long as promised, so I’d need to double that.
After five hours of work, I shelved it. When I couldn’t figure out how to get the blog page set-up, I knew it was time. I was lucky that switching back to the original theme brought back all of my blog posts.
Seriously, for about an hour or so, I thought I’d lost the whole blog.
Every single aspect of the web page these was a fight. None of it was intuitive.
When the video failed me, I downloaded the user manual and tried to read that.
Yeah.
If you’ve ever read a user manual, you’ll know they were written in Chinese and translated into English by people who speak Swahili.
So much for ideal for the novice user.
Another day when I wish would’ve studied computers instead of finance.
I’ve sunk too much money into this theme to give up without a fight. My game plan now is to pick one thing to add to the in-progress website, focus on that, then start another.
I also need to see if these new themes are compatible with some of the other things I did to the blog, like creating a mailing list. Which you can totally sign up for! (hint, hint)
Please bear with me. I think it’ll all be worth it when I’m done, but in the meantime, if you stop by and the site looks wonky, you’ll know why!
How about you? Any project you took on that you thought you’d budgeted plenty of time for, only to learn you were woefully wrong?
The number of audio books out there continues to grow, and Amazon has made it easier than ever to get them. Even my library has audio romance title that I can borrow.
Here are five reasons I love audio books.
Or any household task, really. Popping in my earbuds and working on laundry, cleaning the bathroom, or tidying the living room means more time listening to a book.
I do not like long car rides, however, an audio book can make them more enjoyable. The first time I ever listened to an audio book we were driving out to rural Ohio to visit family. I’m sure if you have a long commute, this would be a good way to spend it.
One of the things I hate about exercising is the excruciating boredom. I know this doesn’t affect everyone. Some people even enjoy exercising. *shudders* But that’s not me. And while I will never enjoy my time on a treadmill or the elliptical, there was more than one day this week that the temperatures didn’t get above 0F/-18C with the windchill.
That requires indoor exercise. However, going down to the basement where we positioned a big screen TV in front of the treadmill and elliptical almost always results in the kids coming down with me and an episode of My Little Ponies or Octonauts on the screen. Not exactly something that takes my mind off the boredom. An audio book helps.
Our youngest child has some sleep issues, and she struggles with falling asleep. Getting her more tired doesn’t work. Warm milk doesn’t work (assuming you can get her to drink it). She never consumes caffeine and gets very little processed sugar. The doctor says some kids are like that, especially kids that have suffered from night terrors. If we actually want her to sleep, we need to sit with her until she falls asleep. That can mean up to an hour of sitting in a darkened room. Yeah, audio books help.
Lots of the books I’ve listened to are narrated by people with British accents. Yeah, enough said.
How about you? Do you listen to audio books? Do you enjoy them? Anything you like about them? Maybe something you don’t like?