Vampire Caprice NOW AVAILABLE!!

Hello, my pretties. Well, this has been a long haul for this book and me. I don't know, but I think this bugger was written about 3 years ago--it only took me 3 months to get it down. Of course, after that the work begins, and I'm what you might call a layering type of writer. I layer in details, and I do mean details...

I'd like to thank a bunch of people who have helped to make this possible.

Shelly Arkon Beta reader #1

Jennifer Wydert - Beta reader #2

John Gill - formatter

and my ever devoted husband Dennis (who does a lot of work around here to allow me to work in my office)

Also a thank you to Lucy Pireel who put the cover together for me

and the cover photo (cave), is by Gord McKenna

Now, for those of you who have not had the chance to read all books, and would like to, I've initiated a KDP select pricing where the price on all books are at $.99 starting on June 14, and will go up gradually up until the 21st. Which means you can buy all three previous books for .99 NOW! 

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!!! Vampire Caprice is also .99 on AMAZON until June 21st. (I sound like one of those info commercials, don't I??) 

I've got a busy summer coming up, so I'll be posting occasionally here. Thank you to all my fans--yes, all ten of you--and hope you all have a great summer!

A Bit of This 'n' That

Merry Christmas to all my pretties!

 I wanted to give you some up-dates what's been happening with me, and my husband and my writing.
This has been a heck of a year! I went Indie, as you may know. That was a busy summer! I got all three of my Sabrina Strong books out as an Indie with the help of my friend/formatter, John Gill (Carole's husband). He was also instrumental in helping me get "The Cat Whisperer" formatted for both Amazon and Smashwords, as well as helping me with the cover.

I finished my husband's afghan. I never realized it, but I've never made him his own before. I've made others just to go over couches, but this one is his.

As you know we had to give up the kittens so that they would go to a good home. This is a picture of Peewee, the smallest kitten in the 5 that were born under the porch steps in the fall. She was so small, she snuggled in between her two bigger brothers, and hid. I was the first one to see her, small as a mouse, but there. I had been very worried about her. Well, here she is. A healthy little kitty, now 2 and a half pounds of spunk! I'm so happy my sister has her, she's delighted I must say, and I'm very happy that this little bundle has given her such pleasure.

This is Peewee ("Sadie") the smallest kitten
in the group of 5 kittens we had to raise and then
give to shelter, but my sister has this one!

I've been told the gray kitten went to her sister-in-law, and that was good news. I hope to hear what happened to the others. But I'm sure they'll all get great homes.

While I sit and look out the window at the melting snow, we are under a winter storm warning for tonight, and so I'm getting this post up just in case I can't do this tomorrow. Christmas has snuck up on me! I didn't have much time to get cards out and forgot to get more stamps, so I just didn't do it.

I am still working on getting the fourth Sabrina Strong book done, with the help of friend and author, Shelly Arkon.

I am currently working on another WIP. As a matter of fact I've almost got 50k words done with it. If I had pushed it, I would have gotten that much done within the 30 days usually set aside for NANOWRIMO. I'm about 4 days over it, but that's okay, as this is a new achievement. And it's nowhere finished at all. Anyway, in case you aren't familiar with what I'm working on, this is something I had written many years ago, and I've decided to dust it off and breath new life into it. I've renamed it "Dhampire Legacy". I've got plans for the cover and two co-workers have agreed to give me a hand in making the cover. I'm not going to reveal any more about that right now, but I will when things begin to move along toward making it and then I'll have a big reveal. But that's a long way away. Next year at some point.

This year I have done what I said I'd do: enjoy life. I did not push myself too much. I went for walks, I crocheted in the afternoons, and read something after dinner before going to bed. And the naps in the afternoon have been wonderful!

I wish all of my readers a very Merry Christmas and we'll see you in the new year! I'll be lurking around my other blogs and usual places in the next few days as well!

Spell of the Black Unicorn & A Little Help from Friends

Back in the day, as a writer I had very little help, absolutely no feedback, except for when I was in a writer's critique circle-which was way long ago. Now, with the Internet, I'm connecting with other writers all over, and other people who can do things I simply cannot. You've got your beta readers, people who can do covers, and also someone to format the manuscript.

There's no way I could have gotten Spell of the Black Unicorn ready to put out as an ebook without my friends, and I'll name them here and give them all a shout out and have some links where you can find them.

Shelly Arkon is my awesome beta reader. I don't know how I could get a better one. I don't believe I could. I'm not sure if she rolled her eyes at my use of the word "peer" so many times in the manuscript, but yeah, it was one of my "crush" words. She often said something encouraging, telling me I was an awesome story teller. You can find this talented author here at Secondhand Shoes (also the name of her own book)

Since my novel was origninally published as a paperback in 2008, it sort of went by the wayside. I wanted to allow the story to see new light, because a lot of people bought and said nice things about it. It also needed a new cover. Something that looked interesting and that might give it the look of something trendy, with the fantasy undertones it needed, without looking too much like a children's book (or YA), which it is not. Well, answering the call for creating a great cover was my good friend Jeremy Hawkins. You can find Mr. Retro-Zombie at this site. Here is the cover, in case you've missed it.


Isn't that a nice cover? It really caught me by surprise. I didn't know what Jeremy would have in mind when he said he could do this for me. We had to work on the lettering, a little to make it brigher, but it's perfect!

Now I don't know how many of you out there can format, or know what you're doing, but I've got no idea about it. Although I did format the original book for the publishers to put it out as a paperback, I had very good instructions (and still had to pay $400 for them to get it printed). So, I needed a formatter. I have a friend in Carole Gill, and she offered her husband, John's help in this area. His services are called White Rose Ebook Formatting. His service is straight forward and he's excellent. I highly recommend him. He also does book covers, and has helped me with a few of my short story covers. I had pictures, and he put in the lettering, got the correct size of the cover/picture and so forth. He was also able to up-load one for me, as I had trouble doing it. So, he's very reliable and flexible in what he can do for anyone in need of formatting and covers and so forth.
This weekend I will be getting the ebook to Amazon. Wish me luck. I was unable to get the high speed Internet service. It's too complicated to explain here. Suffice it to say I'm still on dial up. Yes. I'm as patient as a fool, I guess. I had a feeling I this was not going to work for me.

Hopefully the next post I will write will be where you can get your hands on the ebook copy of Spell of the Black Unicorn. Untill then, my friends!