A Deep Breath and Moving On

Three weeks ago, Darling Husband's mother passed away. Unfortunately, DH and I ended up shouldering a good deal of the responsibility in the aftermath.

FYI: It's a lot harder to write an obituary for a family member than to write a 100,000-word novel.

And thanks to my own chronic health issues, the stress caught up with me and landed my butt in the ER the night after the funeral. *sigh*

But I'm back in the saddle (or in my case, alternating between my recliner and my desk chair), and things are getting done. While I was recovering, I focused on getting the Seasons of Magick series and the Bloodlines shorts reformatted and new covers on them. Okay, I mainly played traffic cop.

Jaye Manus of QA Productions does the interior work. Elaina Lee of For the Muse Design has redone the covers for the entire Bloodlines series and designed the covers for the Justice series. Don't these ladies do a fabulous job?

In between their e-mails, I started proofing the print copies of the first four Bloodlines novels that have been sitting on my desk for two years. Not to mention, I still haven't delivered Blood Sacrifice to Jaye for reformatting for the e-book as well as formatting the paperback version. I want to get those finalized before I start editing Ravaged.

And Thursday, I finally got back to writing.

Things are going a little slower than I planned. We still need to spend some time with DH's father as he makes the transition from married for 60 years man to single guy.

But the writing and publishing are inching forward, and that makes me feel pretty good.

Spreading the Bulldog Love!

I know I promised to have Love, War and a Bulldog (Bloodlines #5.5) up on other sites by December 1st.

Between the Thanksgiving holiday and NaNoWriMo kicking my ass the last weekend, I wanted to wait until Sunday to do the work because I was so damn tired I was afraid I'd screw something up. So of course, I woke up at 4 a.m. Sunday morning with a mild fever, hacking and unable to breath.

After a couple of days of rest, I feel much more coherent, and Love, War and a Bulldog (Bloodlines #5.5) has been uploaded to Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.

Unless you contact me because you buy from Apple and Kobo, I'm not going to load it onto those two retailers (for various reasons I won't get into here).

Blurb
Emerson O’Malley, a were-bulldog, has been trapped in his canine form since the day he was born. Even worse, the likelihood of him losing his virginity is zero. But when he rushes in to rescue three nymphs, he pisses off the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who curses him into human form. Does he take advantage of his one night with the woman he loves or does he save Los Angeles from the goddess’s wrath?

Short story, approx. 4500 words or 15 printed pages

Now available at these retailers
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords

Edit to add: Barnes & Noble finally went live, so the link has been updated.

A Gentle Reminder

Just a little reminder (in case you didn't see Friday's post) that Love, War and a Bulldog is FREE today and tomorrow on Amazon.

Chapter 12 of Blood Sacrifice will be posted on Wednesday.

J.A. Konrath's 8 Hour Challenge (and a Free Book)

As some of you may know, I broke down and tackled Joe Konrath's short story challenge a week ago Thursday. Joe's kind enough to promote our books this weekend. He also encouraged us to try out KDP Select, which I planned to do later, but what the hey?

For those of you awaiting patiently for Blood Sacrifice, this challenge really helped spur me into getting the damn novel done. As in 10,000 words written since I completed the challenge. And I'm literally writing the story backwards, but I'm not going to question this method since the book is getting finished.

Love, War and a Bulldog takes place once everyone returns to Los Angeles after the events of Amish, Vamps & Thieves and Blood Sacrifice. There's no major spoilers.

Okay, maybe a minor one. But seriously, folks, if you haven't figured out who Phil's dad is by now, look up "Amazons" on Wikipedia.

So here's the deal--

1) Love, War and a Bulldog is free now through Tuesday, September 3, on Amazon US only. Click here to download.

[Edit: Amazon has made it free on other country sites as well. It already has downloads from UK and Germany. I've changed the link so it will take you to the appropriate store. Please let me know if you have a problem.]

2) If you're a pure-ist, download it BUT don't read it until after you've read Blood Sacrifice.

3) Love, War and a Bulldog won't be available at other online stores until December 1.

4) I'll try to do a free period at the other sites, but the best I can guarantee is a Smashwords coupon. (I know. You'd think Apple, B&N, etc. would get a clue about these types of temporary sales.)

5) If you absolutely want it now, but you don't have a Kindle or you absolutely refuse to get a Kindle app, my books are DRM-free, You can always convert the Amazon file through Calibre or any other conversion software.

So what the hell is this story about?

Emerson O’Malley, a were-bulldog, has been trapped in his canine form since the day he was born. Even worse, the likelihood of him losing his virginity is zero. But when he rushes in to rescue three nymphs, he pisses off the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who curses him into human form. Does he take advantage of his one night with the woman he loves or does he save Los Angeles from the goddess’s wrath?

P.S. Emerson and his ladylove Agnes made their first appearance in Zombie Love.