I hope everyone is having as good a week as I am. As you all know my book Shaking Off the Dust was released on the first and I have had the great pleasure of hearing from a few readers already. I can’t even begin to tell you how thrilling it is when a reader takes the time out of their busy lives to contact a writer and tell them they enjoyed their work. Thank you so much for that gift.
I don’t have a enough witty and wonderful things to tell you about in my life right now to fill a newsletter, so I will say that I am back to working on a couple of projects that I hope will turn into amazing stories.
I had a bit of ennui flu during the month of December. It was combination of holiday overload, my day job stress and an odd anticipation of SOTD releasing. Time that I would normally dedicate to writing, I spent instead going online to chat groups and review spots throwing in the towel as a commenter and de-lurker hoping to garner some name recognition when the ebook released this week. It was a different experience. I am usually one of those dry wit people, who like to throw in a droll comment here and there. I will say almost anything if I consider it funny. Often as not, I must then remove my foot from my mouth. My family can attest to that.
I am working on revisions to the sequel to SOTD, before I ask my editor to take a good hard look at it and decide if it’s good enough for Samhain. I had every intention of having it done long before now. I’m discovering that a portion of what I learned in the edits from my first book is giving me a different perspective.
WIPs:
I have a historical that I keep coming back to called The Marquess of Warfleighs ‘ Late Wife( the working title). It takes place shortly after Waterloo and the heroine’s back story is interesting. She is the daughter of a military surgeon in 1809 during the peninsular war, who manages to follow him on the march by dressing as a young man. The second son of a Duke discovers the masquerade and when he inopportunes her is forced to marriage by her father. At the Battle of Corunna she is attacked by one of their own officers and savagely beaten in retribution for her husbands search for a traitor. Our hero hears the news of the attack once he is aboard the evacuation ship and well on the way to sea. His friend dares not tell him that she was not only beaten but sexually assaulted as well. Assured her father has stayed behind to care for his wife, many weeks later, he receives word from her father that she died. Our story begins six years later and a couple of months after Waterloo.
Returning to England after years abroad, our heroine searched the aftermath of the Waterloo battlefields to find her father dead and a young soldier terribly injured. The military surgeons sends him away to die and she takes him to her home, so he will not die alone. She, her servant, and children nurse him from deaths door for months. Taking him to London, she hopes to return him to the bosom of his family. Posing as a widow and wearing a veil to hide the scars of her attack, her children and strangers believe she was attacked by a wild dog. The twins she bore after her attack bear no resemblance to her husband and she wants only to settle in a home and take the modest sums she has inherited and find some measure of peace with her children and servant.
Hugo Wysheth, Marques of Warfleigh has searched for years for the man who murdered his wife. Angry with himself and the world, he didn’t realize how much he’d loved her until she was gone. Months of bitter cold, empty bellies and the impossible march they’d taken in the Peninsular War had only been bearable with her beside him and beneath him each night. Her murder at the hands of a traitor and the senseless death of his older brother in a curricle race has made him a bitter man. Only his two long time friends Albert, (Bertie) Earl of New Ripple and the Viscount, Ashley Chillington, remember the man he was with his wife. They fought together and have remained fast friends.
A teaser for you on that one.
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I started a novella to submit for an anthology they are putting together at Samhain. It’s called Actor for the Ages. It’s about a thousand year old vampire actor, who is in the Indianapolis production of a new play and the female director is an Empath. She’s just not feeling it from him. He owns a piano bar and has spent his life performing, finding some peace in music and literature. His emotions have been locked away for hundreds of years and she determined to bring emotional substance to the part. I intended for this to be a straight comedy, but it’s turned into more of a dramedy and when the December Ennui flu hit me, this one got set aside with the rest. It may be more than a novella when it’s done.
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I have an urban fantasy series that I have been working on for a couple of years. I finished a couple of peices, but then the world suddenly expanded and sent out orbiting planets. In the process I decided that I wanted a different story to introduce this series. It’s in the works. I’ll tell you more about this series soon.
Well, that’s a long one to keep you tied over for a bit. In between my day job, I’ll be nose to the pen and paper and lap top.
