A new series for a new year

Thanks to cover designer Daniel Weiss of the Book Cover Designer, I have a shiny new cover for my new series of SF books that will be coming out next year. I have another book already planned, Data Witch, and the two covers look like a set. (My designer is still working on Data Witch.)

The two covers were my Christmas present to me and thanks to a holiday sale, I snagged both for less than $100. I have about thirty on my "wish list," so I suspect that a little more of my Christmas cash will go to the site. (I have been a remarkably good girl this year, although I didn't write nearly as much as I wanted to.) Daniel gave me three different options on where to put my by-line but I think I like this one best.

Returning to my roots

My genre is mystery.
It's what I read for pleasure.
It's what I always wanted to write.
When I first started writing fiction, it was crime fiction that I wrote. Sometime the crimes were mixed with fantasy; sometimes with science fiction; sometimes even with romance. But they were always mysteries.
I wrote a long novella as my first mystery and I could not get arrested for it. Then I wrote a shorter novella in the fantasy romance vein and I suddenly started selling books. I wrote a sequel to the fantasy romance and that sold too, as did a couple of novelettes I wrote.
It's nice selling books.
And I very much enjoyed writing them.
But I'm going back to my roots for NANOWRIMO. This November I'm going to write a psychological mystery, my version of the female centric thrillers that are suddenly hot. I have a pretty good idea I think; at least and idea that excites me enough to put my heart into writing every day for a month.
And to celebrate, I bought a cover from The Book Cover Designer, my favorite "go-to" for premade covers.
The designer was Valdas Miskinis  of Book Cover Arts and at no extra charge I was provide three font variations, which was a nice surprise.
Wish me luck with this one.
Because I've missed writing crime.

Think Spiders are Scary? Me Too

For the last several years I have written longish short horror tories just for Halloween. In the past I published them just on Amazon but I'm in the process of "going wide" with them. Right now you can find Unsanctified--the most spidery of my stories--on all platforms; by the end of the weekend, Spite will be there too.

It's going to be a really busy month, so I might not get a story out this month. If I do, it's going to be called Godforsaken and will most likely feature a cover from my favorite source of pre-made cover designs, Book Cover Designer. My "wish list" on that site is embarrassingly long.

Picnic by the Lake of Time

Tor.com put out a call for novella-length stories about time travel this month and I desperately wanted to submit something. I love time travel stories and this "story bunny" has been drifting around for years. But as I started writing the story, I realized that it was just a story--that it had a finite beginnin and a finite ending and there was no way I could stretch the story out to 20K novella length.

At the same time, I saw this cover on Book Cover Designer and realized it would be a perfect cover for the story. And though I'm really, really trying to increase my output of longer work, I decided that sometimes a story is just a story. So by the Fourth of July, I'll have Picnic by the Lake of Time out in the world. The cover was designed by Ntasja Hellenthal of Beyond Book Covers. Find her here.

Another Cover Reveal!

Over at the Book Cover Designer, they're' going into their last week of a fabulous 20 percent off sale. (A new coupon will generate tonight at midnight PDT.) I've bought a number of covers for upcoming projects  and still have a pretty long "wish list."

I always try to steer my indie author clients toward BCD because they have a wide range of designers who offer covers for as low as $20. (They also have a few that are inexplicably in the $300 price range without, IMHO being worth it, but eye of the beholder and so forth.)

Later this year I have a whole series of novelettes coming out that are basically retellings of Shakespeare tales with a romantic/gothic gloss. Island of Magic (Tempest meets Beauty and the Beast), Cry, Little Sister (Hamlet), and two as-yet-untitled stories based on Othello and Macbeth.

This is the cover for Cry, Little Sister, my retelling of Hamlet from Ophelia's point of view. I liked the cover because I haven't seen the model, who is lovely, all over the stock photo libraries. The cover was designed by Serena Daphn.

Freebie Fairytale Fiction

A Dream of Sun and Roses is still free on Amazon, so if you're looking for a short, futuristic fairy tale (based on Sleeping Beauty) you can get it here.  I like rewriting fairy tales, not so much because I don't have ideas of my own, but because I like telling the stories in my own way. But at a certain point I realized that everyone picks the same five fairy tales--Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and maybe...Red Riding Hood.  When I started my "Modern Magic Series," I knew I wanted ten stories in all, so I had to go beyond the obvious. (Plus, outside of doing a werewolf take on Red Riding Hood, I didn't really see much I could do with the story)

Here's what I came up with:

Fashionista (Cinderella)
While My City Dreams (Rapunzel)
Hunter's Kiss (Snow White)
Hero's Kiss (Beauty and the Beast)
Beauty Sleep (Sleeping Beauty)
Unknown Road (East of the Sun, West of the Moon)
Hideous (Ugly Duckling)
Midnight's Daughter (The Twelve Dancing Princesses)
Lady in the Water (The Little Mermaid)
Soul Kiss (The Snow Queen)

I have covers for almost all of the stories--some women buy shoes, I buy covers. The amazing Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services created some, and I bought the others as premades from various sources. Hunter's Kiss was created by Ravven, whose work is exquisite. I bought two of her premades last year as a Christmas present to me. I also picked up a couple on The Book Cover Designer. I know people can be sniffy about pre-mades, but there's some gorgeous work there.