Happy New Year and ThankYou!

Happy New Year to all my friends and family!

 

And a special Thank You to all my readers, reviewers, friends, extended family and strangers who read my books this year.

 

Here's hoping for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2015 for all!

Looking back at 2014

Goodreads says that I read 19 books this year. I think I read more than that, but I've stopped reviewing the books I didn't like. I bought a couple of bundles this year that I still need to work my way through. But I also found some new favorite authors - Nathan Lowell, Chuck Wendig and Brian Staveley. I need to get back to reading more.

 

My computer died a horrible death in February and I bought a laptop to replace it. I was afraid that I would hate the keyboard, but luckily found one that is very comfortable. In fact, I think I type faster on it. So a happy ending there.

 

 

The garden did very well this year. Had a bumper crop of blueberries - almost 7lbs. I couldn't pick the last handful because of a yellow jacket nest under one bush. The veggie garden is now all raised beds. I think that's made a big difference. I'm still doing some rearranging, but I should have a couple more beds for next year.

 

I published Lethal Seasons in August. I sold a few copies. Buying ads does help sell the book. I started using a bit of marketing. And hopefully a few more people will hear about my books.

 

I've been working on Dark Deeds which will come out next month. In between, I've started rough drafts on Scattered Seeds with a May 2015 deadline.

 

Although I haven't sold many books this year, I managed to sell 3 times the number of the year before. A lovely increment, even though it's still miniscule.

 

 

In September, I went up to Kingston, NY to visit relatives and research my roots. All of my Irish relatives settled there. The photo is of the Hudson River from Rhinebeck, which is on the other side. Kingston is a working town. My ancestors worked in the shirt factory or the cigar factory, cutting bluestone for sidewalks, for the railroad or on the river. The next generation had some policeman, nurses and teachers. Kingston is still very much a working class town struggling to come out of the recession. It was very good to see that town and walk around it.



All in all a good year - travel, relatives, reading, writing and gardening. Here's hoping for to surpass it all in the coming year!

Free Audiobooks!

I have an audiobook giveaway for

White Lies - Book 1 of the Asher Blaine Mysteries

posted on Facebook

Click on the link to check it out!

Dark Deeds Cover Reveal

Here it is!

The fabulous cover for the new book.

Dark Deeds will be on sale at the end of January.

Asher's in trouble, again.

He’s about to film his first big movie since he got sober. Messing up now will mean the end of his career. To get ready, he's rented a cottage in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina where they will start filming in a few weeks. Although he’s thousands of miles from his family and friends, he’s looking forward to the challenge.

But on his first day there, the trouble started with a car crash. Then he found a body in the woods.

Or did he?

When the sheriff arrives, it’s nowhere to be seen. He worries that this was some sort of sick practical joke. And then he worries for his own life.

There are more dark deeds brewing in the mountains. An explosion starts a wildfire in the woods behind his cottage. Then a rockslide pushes his car off the road.

Is someone trying to kill him, again?

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Dark Deeds Cover Reveal on Dec 15

On Monday, I will be revealing the cover for Dark Deeds here on the blog. I'm very pleased with the cover. It shows the danger and the whimsy of the Asher Blaine stories. Alex Storer is amazing at translating my incoherent babblings into beautiful artwork.

It was nice to go back and visit with Asher, Ellie, George and the gang. I was able to slide back into that world pretty easily. And I have to admit that it was nice to give him a happy ending. I'm not sure if there will be another book, it's always possible, but not in the immediate future. I have other stories that need to be told.

Next week I will be getting the feedback on the final round of readers. So far the reactions have all been favorable. I will be doing the final rewrite after that and it's off to line editing. Whew!

I am now shooting for a January 30 publication date. It should be available for presales by the beginning of January. The Dark Deeds ebook will be $2.99. I haven't sorted out the print version, yet.

Book 1 of the Asher Blaine series

 

The White Lies ebook will remain at 99cents at least through January, possibly longer.

Alex is also working on a trailer. More news on that soon. There will also be a giveaway coming up at Goodreads. Lots of things happening. Sign up for the newsletter to hear more about them.

Catching up with myself

I say that all the time - I need to catch up with myself. I'm not sure where it is that I have gotten to that I am apparently not all there...hmm. And I just wasted 15 minutes looking for some clipart to jazz up this post. Needless to say, nothing caught my eye.

Dark Deeds is going out to the third and final round of readers today. Whew.

There will be a cover reveal for Dark Deeds on December 15. Alex Storer has done another amazing job. I love the cover. It is the perfect combination of dire events and absurdity that the Asher Blaine books have.

Because of a variety of things, mostly life, I've pushed back the publication date to the end of January. As things come together and I can be sure of a date, I'll post it.

While I am waiting on readers, I started laying down the bones of Scattered Seeds, book 2 in the Changed World Series. It was fun to get back to Wisp and Nick and Angus. I've got about 15 chapters down in a quick and dirty form. That's just to lay out the action. I'll go back to add description, tighten the dialog and sprinkle in the foreshadowing. It's coming along nicely. I can see where I want it to go, but I'm not sure where it'll end, yet.

Lethal Seasons got a short but sweet, 5-star review on Goodreads - "Soooooo good." Gotta say that made my day. So glad to see someone liked it!

I haven't done a book review in awhile. The last few books I've read haven't tickled my fancy, shall we say. One that I read started out fine but then went seriously downhill. It came in a Story Bundle so I don't feel bad about the money spent, there're other goodies to make up for it. I went on Goodreads to see what others were saying. There was already a review that perfectly echoed my own problems with the story. It was nice to see someone else had the same reaction.

I have a pile on the Kindle that I need to get to, but there are only so many hours in a day! I'm rearranging the garden again. Only this time it involves building a wall. So that is taking up time on good-weather days. The family tree stuff snuck out and hijacked me a couple weeks ago. Man that stuff is addicting. I've found a whole new passel of relatives and a bunch of new sites with info. Dangerous! Lost a lot of time to that over Thanksgiving holiday. Oh, and I'm writing two books at the same time.

Have I mentioned my insomnia?

And now I need to get back to writing!