Newsy update

I sometimes get envious of my writing self, who gets to spend her days (and nights) traveling and writing. My other self has to deal with things like chauffeuring offspring, calling AAA when her battery unexpectedly dies, going to meetings, and grading these:

But now the battery is replaced, the meetings are suspended until January, the offspring are about to be on vacation, and the towering pile of papers and exams has been conquered. Hooray!

So I thought it was time for a blog update. Here's what's new.

My holiday short story, Alaska, is now available from Dreamspinner, Amazon, ARe, and other online booksellers. It's a bittersweet tale, a bit of a balance perhaps to all the holiday sugar.

And it looks like today it's on sale at Dreamspinner. While you're picking up sale books, Brute, Housekeeping, The Tin Box, and Speechless are also discounted.

And speaking of Brute, I am overwhelmed and delighted to announce that it won the Rainbow Book Award in the fantasy category--quite an accomplishment when you see the other contenders! It also tied for fourth in the Gay Novel category. This book has a special place in my heart, and I'm so pleased for Brute to get some love.

Also, Shobana Appavu's gorgeous work for Venetian Masks tied for fourth in the Illustrated Cover category. Well-deserved, I think.

I have several new things in the works. In February or so, my next novel will release. It's a fantasy called Pilgrimage. Here's the blurb:

Fiscal analyst Mike Carlson is good with spreadsheets and baseball stats. He doesn’t believe in fate, true love, or fantasy. But then a fertility goddess whisks him away to another world. A promise has been broken, and if Mike is ever to return to California—and his comfortable if lonely life—he must complete a pilgrimage to the shrines of a death goddess.

 

A humiliating event convinces Mike to hire a guard to accompany him, and hunky Goran is handy enough with a sword, if a little too liberal with his ale. A man with no home and no family, Goran is deeper than he first appears. As Mike learns more about Goran, his disbelief wavers and his goals become less clear. Contending with feuding gods, the challenges of the journey, and his growing attraction to Goran, Mikes faces a puzzle far harder to solve than simple rows of numbers.

Then in April, I'll have a novella in a fantastic anthology called Stitches. The other authors are Sue Brown, Eli Easton, and Jamie Fessenden, and I so enjoyed their stories! The stories all have themes of artificially created men, and it's the first in a whole series--Gothika--with gothic themes. My story is called The Golem of Mala Lubovnya. Set in seventeenth century Eastern Europe, it's a take on the traditional golem tales.

Finally, I recently submitted another novel. This one is an urban fantasy or paranormal story set mostly along the old Route 66 and in Las Vegas. It has a bit of a noir feel to it and features a ghost and a man for whom good luck just isn't enough. I'll keep you updated on it.

Between my busy schedule when I was in Europe and finals when I returned, I haven't had time to write anything new for a while. My muse is furious with me, and she and I are both very excited to get back to work!