Cover of my new novel which is now ‘live’ on Amazon, Smashwords and Kobo.

My latest novel has just been published on both Amazon (Kindle) and Smashwords (which is now merged with Draft2Digital) plus Kobo to which D2D distribute.

Willow’s Way is the fifth full length novel in the Living Fae series. It follows Willow, Harlequin’s youngest brother, who is now grown up and ready to start his own independent life. Everyone is reluctant to separate the twins, Willow and Briony, but the twins themselves have very different ambitions. Willow rejects guard duty in Tara in favour of doing some investigations on behalf of the court, and his first assignment takes him, with Briony too, to the Hebrides to check on their father who is under a kind of open imprisonment there for his crimes. Willow is also tasked with investigating reports of drug addiction in Glasgow. On the way he meets Ref, a travelling fae. They fall madly in love but are soon separated. The rest of the novel details Willow’s various cases, his reunion with Ref, and their eventual return together to the Edge. Briony goes to Tara without Willow. So the book is part mm romance and part detective work covering issues like theft, murder and kidnapping. Willow has his own story, narrated by him, and is no longer merely one of the twins.

I was startled to realise that Joy Lynn Fielding, to whom the book is dedicated, had been notified of its ‘live’ status on Smashwords before they had notified me! I was going to send her a complimentary copy but was too late! I find the new D2D system harder to navigate than the old Smashwords one but will no doubt adjust given time. Joy has been really helpful with thoughtful critiques and I hope she enjoys this new volume.

Readers unfamiliar with the Living Fae series will probably find this novel impenetrable as it references so many events and characters from the earlier stories. So if you are interested, I would recommend tackling the series in order. However, if anyone has simply forgotten names and locations there is a glossary on this website under the tab Living Fae which should sort things out for you. There are also shorter stories set in the same world under the tab Free Stuff. I may start working on another of these soon. It seems my brain is reluctant to leave the Edge and its fae inhabitants.

I’ll take the opportunity here to mention and thank my editor, MA Naess, for her brilliant advice and proof reading.

If you like the idea of modern fae living complex lives centred around Alderley Edge in Cheshire, UK, please give my series a try! And if you do and you enjoy the books please either leave a review somewhere or let me know your thoughts!

I messed about for ever and eventually just reversed the cover of the first book and changed the colours a bit.

I’ve finally published The Trouble with Unicorns after having problems earlier in the year with the formatting of the first book, The Virgin and the Unicorn.

There wasn’t going to be a sequel but a reader asked ever so nicely. It isn’t exactly a sequel because it doesn’t have the same main characters. Prince Alair and Kian do appear but only in minor roles. However, much of the action takes place around Kian’s Castle Onehorn and of course there are unicorns.

The story starts and ends with midwinter celebrations where Cory (a minor character in the first book) meets Galad. During the following year there is plenty of action and angst but by the time midwinter comes round again there’s a happy ending.

I’ve been trying to market it and entered it in an Advent giveaway, but have just found most of my links to my pages here are broken or just not as they should be. So you can imagine there’s a huge New Year Resolution in store!

Here, of course, we’ve just had the Solstice and that’s very special to me. For one thing, I like the idea of tying festivals to natural events and for another it’s my daughter’s birthday. I don’t like the darkness of mid-December but I do like all the holiday lights and glitter that somehow raise the spirits. I think fantasy worlds are bound to have their own celebrations of one kind or another and as this particular world has similar seasons to our own I’m sure the people would mark the longest and shortest days.

I hope you had a happy Solstice and will have a great time in the coming weeks whatever you celebrate, even if it’s only time off work!

My book is now published. Amazon were happy straight away. Smashwords had a problem converting to epub because there were hidden text boxes in the word document. Now sorted. I hope they don’t suddenly reappear in the Kindle version because Amazon don’t seem to give you the opportunity to reupload unless they’ve asked you to!

Buy links:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1366630

Well, I’ve uploaded it to Amazon and Smashwords, wrestled with possible blurbs (many many thanks to Rebecca Cohen) and agonised over categories, tags, etc. Apparently you’re not expected to have both mm and mf romances in the same story. Real life should clearly not intrude on fiction… I’ve hopefully given each site the correct versions. For example, Smashwords won’t have anything to do with docx whereas that’s Amazon’s preference even though till about a year ago they liked a web page. Their cover sizes differ, too. I’m never convinced they’ll use my correct pen name because of course I have to use my legal/banking name with them for tax purposes. I’m also usually terrified that they’ll shout at me because something has gone drastically wrong. The only time they ever did was when I forgot to tick the ISBN box, but you never know! I’ve chosen a price – at random really, because I can never decide what price things should be. It’s a question of a selling point rather than actual worth, after all. I suspect the Kindle version won’t have a live table of contents because I got stuck, for the first time, on creating one that looked reasonable. Smashwords do it for you provided you format the chapter headings a certain way. Now I’ll live with low level angst until both sites tell me the book is live – and then till Smashwords tell me whether they consider it worthy of distribution to various other platforms. I’ll let you know!

I have a new book coming out soon and I’m quite excited. It’s called The Seekers and is a stand-alone completely unconnected to any of my other stories.

It’s all edited and ready but I’ve been struggling with the table of contents which a friend assures me is not obligatory and not really necessary with a novel. Smashwords do it for you, but Amazon expects its authors to be more competent… I usually manage tocs fine but this one keeps disintegrating.

Anyway, I’ve also been struggling with the blurb. The trouble is, the book has more than one romance thread and could appeal to both mm and mf readers. So I haven’t quite known how to pitch it! It grew out of characters initially developed for an online game.

Here goes:

Twin fairy princes and their sister are escaping from an abusive and manipulative father. They cross the ocean in search of a better life and head inland accompanied by a motley crew of companions picked up along the way. There’s a slow burn same sex romance, an m/f romance that strikes like lightning but is destined to last, and a choice for an ace character that will also impact the others. Much of the story involves jewels, mined and sold, which inspired the cover.

What do you think?

I am having a panic over my latest book.

It’s written, beta’ed, edited, proof read, and formatted to within an inch of its life. The cover is done and approved by my editor. It’s all ready to self publish. Actually, it’s been ready for about a month. And I still love the characters.

So what, you ask, is the problem?

The problem is both simple and insoluble: the right tags for Amazon and Smashwords.

Here’s the planned blurb:

The Seekers follows a group of people on a quest in a fantasy world. It’s a quest to escape rather than to seek. Twin fairy princes and their sister are fleeing their abusive and manipulative father. A dark elf is tired of the humdrum nature of his job as manager of the family mines. A young goblin on his travelling year needs to sell the contents of his pack before returning home. They meet almost by accident and have no idea where they are going. There is one unexpected m/f marriage in the desert and another in the hall of the mountain king. There’s an ACE character who falls in love with travelling and journeys on alone. There’s a slow burn m/m romance that ends in a HEA by the last chapter. So the novel asks what people really want, and gives them their sometimes surprising hearts’ desires.

OK. With me so far?

I get to fiction/fantasy and then get stuck. I want to stress the mm romance but can’t play down the mf ones. None of the romances are particularly explicit and are more interesting in terms of character development and family/friendship group reactions than in terms of sex. And yet – there’s at least one sex scene. It’s a quest rather than a romance and there are no thriller elements though there are moments of extreme danger. But it isn’t by any means a high fantasy quest of the usual kind.

The tag trees on the publishing sites simply don’t allow for much of this.

Any advice welcome!!