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Crazy Days

I don’t know about you, but it has been crazy around here since I last visited with you. I’m not sure what all has been going on, but we’ve been super busy and away from the house.

But I have done some writing, so don’t worry. And some editing, mainly on Whiskey Jug Genie. That Bubba is a character for sure.

And writing? Mainly on Unwilling Soulmates. All Trevor wanted to do was his job after he’d been transferred to Soeranza. And everything would have been fine except for Theresa, or Ms. Langley as she insisted he call her. From there first meeting, before he’d said more than hello, she’d had it in for him, and no one knew why.

Theresa was irritated. Of all the people on Gambler’s Folly, why did she get stuck with this rich kid on her team? What do you do when you can’t stand a person and Mother Nature decides he’s it? Granted, the reason you don’t like him has nothing to do with him personally. It’s his background–the whole wealthy class thing–you can’t stand. A couple incidents in your past have poisoned your mind against rich kids playing cop, as you see it. And you’re not having any of it.

And Mother Nature means business, going so far as to have her look him up over the weekend and issue her mating challenge. But when she wakes up in the morning and realizes what she’s done, she has no idea where to go from there. Someone must have a way to reverse the bonding process, mustn’t they?

Where will it all end? Who knows? But we’re working on it.

Have you read the other books in the Gambler’s Folly Series? If not, go ahead and catch up while you wait for the next book in the series to come out. The first book, Gambler’s Folly, sets the scene on Gambler’s Folly. Book 2, Dante’s Angel, follows our first couple to Earth, where another match is formed. And Book 3, The Russian, brings a new love to a 500 year old wolf shifter who has hunted alone since his soulmate died 200 years ago.

What else is going on? Still working on Gregor Thayne for Esperance. And of course, editing on Whiskey Jug Genie, which will be published as Sultonna Nadine.

Gregor Thayne will bring in new characters and romance, as well as advance the overall story of Esperance with it’s trials and tribulations from the previous books. We reconnect with Jareth and Viviane, as well as other First Lord’s from the first two books.

Whiskey Jug Genie is a lighthearted tale with a hint of magic and romance. Picturea young Englishman touring the Southeastern United States. A collector of antique bottles and jugs, he finds an old whiskey jug which would be perfect for his apothecary shop in London.

Imagine his surprise when he cleans it and pulls the stopper and a redneck genie appears, having been trapped in the jug for two hundred years. And for many years before that, he’d been in the American south and picked up a lot of country along the way. Bound to the jug by a curse, our Englishman now finds himself stuck with this character, who is so out of touch with the modern world, he sees everything from the refrigerator to mobile phones as magic.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

Happy reading!

And Don’t Forget…

…to Share the Romance…

Welcome to August!

Does anyone else have trouble believing the summer is almost gone? Here we are in August already. Where has the time gone?

I’ve been working on a couple WIPs. One for each of my series. They’re going well, though I’m not sure where we’ll all end up. My characters tend to have ideas of their own and take off without informing me beforehand. So I try to keep and sort it out to a happy ending. Trevor and Theresa, on Gambler’s Folly, are no exception.

Do you prefer e-books or paperback?

My personal preference is for paperbacks, but these days they can cost quite a bit. And if we’re traveling, I can take a whole library with me in e-book form. But there’s something about the feel of the pages in a physical book, the smell of the ink, or the scent from an old book which has seen a lot of the world.

What is the oldest book you own?

I have a book I bought when I was in high school at a Goodwill store. It was priced at twenty-five cents and I loved it. It has travelled with me for years and about once a year, I retrieve it from the bookcase and read it one more time.

Copyrighted in 1909 by Arthur Hornblow, By Right of Conquest is a turn of the century romance. While it is pretty tame for today’s readers, it nonetheless gives us an insight into the written word as it was over 100 years ago, as well as life in society at the time.

So share your books with me in the comments below.

While I doubt any of my books will last as long as By Right of Conquest, I have fun writing and sharing them with you.

Check them out at Amazon, Smashwords, or any major bookseller. The first two books from the Esperance series are available from Audible as well.

Have a wonderful month, my friends.

And Don’t Forget…

...to Share the Romance…

And I do apologize. Summer has kind of gotten away from me this year, what with my husband in and out of town quite a bit, trying to garden in a thunderstorm, and find a way to walk without drowning.

But other than that, things are moving pretty smoothly here in the Southeast

So what has been happening in my writing?

Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is still on through July 31 and all of my books are included. Most of them are a name-your-own-price book, a few are a very low price. All the books in the two series and the one published as Sultonna Nadine are there for you to snap up.

I love their Summer Winter sales for trying out new authors, adding more books to a series I’ve started, or just picking something at random. And with the sale prices, I can afford it.

Now, works in progress…

Gregor Thayne has been growing, and I believe I see a path toward the ending. One of the Esperance series stories, it will come after Ben of Blacstone’s Forge, which will come after Too Many Talents, so I have time to finish it and tinker. But I think you’ll like Gregor and his wife Caela. We were introduced to the family Rowan in Viviane, First Lady, at Viviane’s brother’ s trial. First Lord Kinsey was one of the judges on the bench during the proceedings.

Gregor is quite different from his father. More of a rogue than one would expect from the heir to the house, at one time in his life, he ran away from home, fled to the other side of the clan, took his mother’s maiden name, and joined the city guard. Eventually reconciled with his father, he agreed to take up his duties once again, but retained the name change.

On Gambler’s Folly, we have Unwilling Soulmates. Trevor is a leopard shifter from a wealthy family in Scotland, recently transfereed to Speranza from Crystal Mountain. Theresa is from Chicago and has an extreme prejudice against rich kids “playing cop.” Mother Nature is trying to push them toward a mating challenge, but she can’t stand the mention of his name, and her attitude has put him quite off. Every time they meet, she hurls more barbs and insults to the point of the chief threatening her with a three day suspension.

In the meantime, they have a drug issue going on, which this department of shifters is trying to track down. But the suppliers are an elusive bunch. Working with Dmitri, Nagi, and Shoda, Trevor would love to settle in to this new post. But that woman is making things particularly difficult.

Where will this end up? I’m working on that bit. But it will come in after Old Flame and Scotch and Soulmates in the Gambler’s Folly lineup.

Do you follow me on Twitter or Facebook? I’m thinking of starting a weekly snippet on Friday. What do you think? It would be little peeks at my WIP’s as things progress. Leave a comment if you have an opinion.

But do go check out the Book Sale at Smashwords. And check out my profiles on social media. For now, it’s time to sign off and get some writing done. Esperance? Or Gambler’s Folly? Where shall I visit today?

Ciao for now!

And Don’t Forget…

...to Share the Romance…

Coming soon…

Happy Father’s Day!

Of course, it’s raining here in Georgia, so I think the barbecue is off for the afternoon. But at least my guy made it home for the weekend. We can cook indoors and watch a movie with the cats. They are, of course, pointedly ignoring him for being gone.

Hope you’re all having a wonderful Father’s Day. Give that guy a hug while you have him here. You never know when his time on earth will be over.

Looking for something to read later in the week?

Check out one of my series on Amazon!

And as always,

Don’t Forget…

...to Share the Romance…

Get Vocal

No, not like that… I mean as in Vocal.Media, the online place for those of a creative bent to share their work.

I’ve had a few things up on Vocal.Media for a little while now. Sometimes I write about events in the news, or things on my mind. Sometimes I create short stories to share with others.

Either way, it gives people a chance to check out my work without buying one of my longer novels, and for free at that!

Looking for a short fiction work?

How about The Reward, Warrior Priestess, or The Walk?

Maybe something more down to earth…

There’s Diabetic and Confused, What’s Different, and The Digital Age.

Go over, check it out, and if you like it, leave a tip.

Want an excerpt? Here’s something from The Digital Age.

I know many of you have grown up in this digital age, where everything is available online, on your phone, or on your tablet. And I will admit, it can be extremely convenient when doing research, especially thinking back to all the hours I spent in the library before this digital age. College papers would have been so much easier if I could have researched them online.

The thing is, though, that we are now dependent on all things digital. At the moment, I’m having a real problem.

Want to learn more?

Check out my page at Vocal.Media!

Talk to you later, everyone.

And Don’t Forget…

...to Share the Romance…

Have You Heard?

This blog how has a podcast!

It’s true!

WordPress has recently offered the option of turning blogs into podcasts, so I decided to give it a try.

What do I talk about? My books, the series, this writer’s life.

Who has a lot of time to read these days? Sitting down with a book in the evening is one thing, but reading all the different blogs which interest you can be time consuming.

So, if you can listen to them in your car while you drive to work…

A much better solution. Am I right?

I currently have five podcasts available and will be adding more as the cats allow. They will try to help…

Where is it, you ask?

You can find my podcasts over at Anchor!

Go on over! Hear the latest news from this author. And share with your friends.

As always…

Don’t Forget…

…to Share the Romance…

Talk to Me!

People often ask where I get the idea for a particular story and how I develop it. And that can vary from one to the next. Sometimes it will start with a dream or recurring dream. Sometimes a random “what if” thought.

One of my books started with a song and a “what if” moment.

One which is in the works was an idea my husband had.

Now, I have tried to outline and get all the bits worked out ahead of time, but it doesn’t work for me. My characters have minds of their own and take off on wild tangents, leaving me in the dust.

My characters talk to me, in their own unique ways and choose their own path.

If you are a “seat of the pants” writer, you probably know what I mean. If you aren’t…

Imagine you are conducting a musical ensemble. You have the music there in front of you. You know how you will guide these musicians to have the sound you want. It will be marvelous.

And then, all of a sudden, the whole ensemble decides to take Beethoven for a romp through Bourbon Street blues. Or Bach into death metal. You have completely lost control.

I’ll be writing along, thinking I know where I’m going, and all of a sudden they’re doing something else.

“What are you doing?” I ask. “I didn’t say you could go there.”

They just smile and shake their heads.

“Phfft… Right. We’re trying to tell our story here. Do try to keep up.”

Yeah. Sort of like that. With attitude.

I normally don’t have trouble getting my characters to talk to me. But I do have times when I wish they would shut up for a while.

Like at 2 am when I want to sleep and they want to write. They can be completely unreasonable. Especially when they gang up on me.

I’ll have characters from two different books, two different series, vying for my attention.

Would you take turns? Please?

And then there are the stories which want to be told right now. It doesn’t matter that I’m working on three other ones. I have to begin this one, too.

Case in point–the one under the working title Unwilling Soulmates. Would not leave me alone, so I promised that as soon as I finished Lady Calloway, I would at least begin on their story.

So I did. I chose names, got the opening scene in my head and began to write. But every time I tried to write his name, I tried to type something else and gave up for the day. Later, when I was drifting off to sleep, another bit of the scene came to mind, using a different name than the one I’d chosen.

It seems his name is Trevor, not Stewart, and he would like it changed.

So we now have Trevor and Theresa, tapping their toes impatiently and waiting for me to take up the story again.

That’s how my weekend is shaping up. What are your plans?

You can find my books on Amazon, Smashwords, or at any major bookseller. With two series and a stand alone, there is plenty to choose from.

Don’t forget to check out the podcast at Anchor.

And as always…

Don’t Forget…

…to Share the Romance…

Some people prefer to listen rather than read, and this makes sense in this busy world. I like to read when I’m home, but if I have a long drive, I’ll put in an audio book to help pass the time.

Did you know two of my Esperance books are on Audible? That’s right! Jarerth, First Lord and Viviane, First Lady are both available as audio books!

Not ready for anything that long?

I also do podcasts of my blog here over at Anchor! So if you want to catch the news from this writer’s life, but don’t have the time to sit and read, catch the podcast!

You can find it at Anchor, Spotify, RadioPublic, and several other sites.

So if you don’t have time to read, go ahead. Listen!

Wishing you a wonderful holiday weekend.

And as always,

Don’t Forget…

…to Share the Romance…

Open magic book with the light. Eps 10

Happy Memorial Day!

Yes, it’s that time again. Memorial Day. In the United States, it is a federal holiday set aside to honor military personnel who died in the performance of their military duties.

I know it isn’t, but it always seems like Memorial Day signals the beginning of summer. Maybe it’s because we always got out of school about then and our summer began.

Those of us in the marching band played in the town parade, whether school was finished for the year or not. We started at the school, marched through the town square, and then turned right to go to the cemetary. The eerie sound of the echo performance of Taps always brought tears to my eyes.

But let me tell you, those forest green wool uniforms were hot in the Ohio sun, whether marching or standing at parade rest. Complete with hats and gloves, we always hoped for a cloudy day.

Are you doing anything for Memorial Day this year? For many, it is a time for family get-togethers, barbecues, fireworks… Of course, around here, it seems any type of holiday is a time for fireworks.

I don’t have any family plans for the holiday, but I am planning something special for my readers.

A Book Sale over at Smashwords!

That’s right! Just click the link above to go to my author profile. All of my books, listed by series, will be there for you to peruse.

Beginning tonight, all my books will be available for $0.99 each. And the sale will go through Monday night. So if there any you need to complete a series, now’s the time to stock up!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend and holiday. Stay safe out there!

And as always,

Don’t Forget…

…To Share the Romance…

Do You Review?

Please tell me you do.

Why?

It makes a lot of difference to authors like me, who sell on Amazon. It is difficult to get noticed out there and reviews help. How often have you seen a product or book listed on Amazon and decided not to look at it because it had few or no reviews?

There is also the promotion factor. Unless an author has a certain number of reviews for their book, Amazon does very little to promote it. It won’t show up in suggestions for readers or in any promotional events. You’re on your own without reviews.

If you don’t review, why not? It takes only a few minutes to say whether or not you liked the book or what you liked about it. It may take less time than getting through the drive through during lunch hour and it costs you nothing.

But it will help out that new author whose book you tried the other day. The one you couldn’t put down.

So give it some thought. Give an author a hand.

Write a review.

And as always…

Don’t Forget…

…to Share the Romance…

Mellie's Books

My world of fantasy, romance, and magic.

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