Vote as if your life depends on it, because it does...

 I don't make a secret of my politics. Bu telling you to register to vote has nothing to do with who I vote for. It's one of the duties of being a citizen. The country doesn't ask much of you. Occasionally you might be summoned for jury duty. And every so often, they ask you to vote. If you aren't registered, visit this site. The mid-terms are important. The presidential election is important. The city council elections in your home town are important. VOTE!

I am cheered to see that celebrity influencers are geting involved too. Normally I just roll my eyes when I see a TikTok star or an Instagram influencer talking politic. But the lousy turnout of millennials shows that the regular messages are reaching them. So pieces like this are welcome:  https://youtu.be/V2cYnsYqlZE

I love book covers and I cannot lie

 One of my favorite things about being an indie author (and I've been traditionally published) is hat you have control over what your cover looks like. In trad publishing, even heavyweights like King and Patteson don't have that much say. But as an indie, you can have exactly the cover you want. (That doesn't prevent a lot of indie covers from being awful, but you could say that about a fair number of trad published books as well.)

A cover will make me want to pick up a book. The cover of Mexican Gothic, for example, is so beautiful it looks like a piece of art I want to put on my bookshelf facing out. (It's a wonderful book, but that cover is what snaggedme.) If ou haven't seen it, I urge you to look it up. I couldn't post the cover because it's protected by copyright, and I couldn't. 

When I started publishing 11 years ago, you could buy a lot of covers for under $50.  There were a couple of designers who specialized in inexpensive covers. They all used the same photo sources--Deposit Photo, Shutter Stock, Dreamstime--so you started to see the same faces over and over. (I have the same model on several books. His name is Gunther, and his images are up at a site called Period Images. Another of their models, Karl, is on a couple other books. 

Prices have gone up, but you can still snag some bargains if you cruise the sites. The one I use most often is Book Cover Design. They have tons of designs and one of the things I like about them is that they don't accept covers that use AI-generated images. I've seen a lot of posts touting how writers can make their own covers quickly and freely using sites dedicated tojust that. Right now, honestly, they mostly look awful but in a few months, who knows? (This is different from covers using characters that designers have patiently created on their own.) But the way AI images are created involves a kind of "sampling" from other images, that are the property of the designers who created them. In other words, depending on how you look at it, it's sketchy or it's stealing.  

Designers have to make a living too. Both my mother and my sister were artists. They made a living from their commercial art (working for department stores and thelike). I would hate to think that someone was stealing their art. (Piray of books is also a huge issue. I've seen my work on pirate sites. A lot of people say, well--I don't have the money to buy your book. Except, they're mostly all on KU, so you could spent $10 and get thousands of books for free. And don't tell me you don't spend at least ten dollars a month buying fancy coffee.Onw of my books has been downloaded so much that if I actually got royalties, I could actually cover my monthly expenses with my writing.) But I digress. We were talking about covers.

I have stockpiled a lot of covers, which turned out to be a good investment when prices started going up. A lot of designers I bought when they were just starting out are now in the $200-$300 range per cover. But there is one drawback. Styles in covers change and what looked like an awesome cover back in the day looks hopelessly dated now. Or you bought covers for a series you planned and now find yourself writing in another direction. (I have a number of covers for horror stories and I don't really write those that often.)

Man Chest Ahead...but my story is sweet

 I write a lot under the pen name Katherine Moore. "She" is my most successful pseudonym and the one with the best accolades. (I worked hard to get that USAT bestselling author, yes, I'm goig nto mention it often.) Her brand is sweet, cozy, feel good stories and while I'll occasionally get a little spicy (and it's very little), I mostly stay in the Hallmark zone, if you know what I mean.

But I also contribute to a lot of anthologies and in general, the covers are geared to an audience that's looking for more heat. I often feel like "which story is not like the others?"  But the thing is, I don't really read the sexier stuff. I'm not a prude--sex is awesome in movies--but when I read it, it often sounds really clinical and I get distracted by the words. Rod, shaft, manhood, cock.  Or pussy, cunt, mound, vagina.  It's not that I want to say "thing" and "ya-ya" but I'd rather take you up to the bedroom door so you can imagine what happens then.

Which brings me back to those covers. Basically, if you see I'm in an anthology with a Man Chest cover, it means that I've been invited to play along even though my story isn't as sexy as my fellow writers' fiction. If you like your romance across the spectrum, you will be a happy reader. (As Kat Parrish, I have done some Man Chest--the Rezso novels are sexier.)

A different kind of shifter

 I admit it, werewolves (or as they're known in PNR. wolf-shifters) kind of bore me. I just think there are way more interesting creatures to shift into. (Do not get me started on those books about peacock shifters and raven shifters. It defies credulity that a fully grown adult can shift into a three-pound bird or a house cat or anything that weighs less than a hundred pounds.)

So when I write about shifters, they're likely to be somthing else. I have a whole series of books spotlighting women who shift into a tiger, a lion, and a snow leopard. The tiger story is called "A Tiger's Heart" and it's included in this anthology, Shifter Time. You might enjoy it. The title is taken from a Shakespeare play because I love Shakespeare and look for any opportunity to use it. It comes from Macbeth, one of my favorite plays despite its cursed reputation. It's a description of Lady Macbeth, who has a tiger's heart "wrapped in woman's hide."  

A Sense of Place

 I've lived a lot of places in my life. My father was in the Army, so at a minimum, that meant we moved every three years at the minimum until he retired. I traveled a lot as a kid, and visited a lot of other states and countries. Now, after five years in Washington state, I live as a digital nomade in Portugal.  Before my stay in Washington, I lived in Los Angeles for decades. L.A. was like no other place I'd ever been and I really loved it there. It became the setting for one of my long-running book series, and I also wrote a whole lot of short stories set there. L.A. had everything a writer could want.

When I moved from L.A. to Bellingham, it was a bit of a weather shock. I moved in January and it was the coldest day my new hometown had experienced in many years. It was 28, and the doors and windows were all open to air out the new paint fumes and allow the movies easy access. It was also raining. The last few years I lived in Los Angeles, it didn't rain much. It rained so much in Bellngham that if you took a shower and left your used towel on the towel rack--it wouldn't get dry. Things stayed damp. Mildew was a problem. Black mold was a problem. The house smelled of sporacide for a month after we started treating the mold we found everywhere. Bellingham was not beautiful in winter. 

But come the fall--it was the most magical place I'd seen in years. The oaks and maples and birch trees exploded wtih brilliant colors. I hadn't seen fall--my favorite season--since I left my parents' home in Virginia. I loved fall in Bellingham.  There were many other reasons to love the city. Located halfway between Vancouver, B.C. and Seattle, it had a park with a waterfall. The best indepedent bookstore on the West Coast, and tons of restaurants. It had a rich history that was literally embedded in its sidewalks--glass squares that provided illumination for the tunnels below--remnant of a dark past when Chinese immigrant workers lived in those tunnels. There was a road that ran adjacent to my bank that led to Canada. It was lined with trees and in the autumn, it looked like a road to some fairyland place.The city was criss-crossed by hiking trails that the deer also used. The deer were not shy and it was not unusual to see one passing. That also added to the fairytale atmosphere.

But for some reason, it was really hard for me to get a sense of the place.  I tried writing a short story set there for an anthology of Pacific Northwest stories called something like Blood and Rain. I failed miserably. I didn't know what was wrong, why it just wasn'tcoming. And then one day I started writing Deus Ex Magical, the first in my "Ostrander witches series, and I realized...my character lived in Seattle. I had taken the name of the series from a friend of mine who lives in Seattle, and I knew the city. And then, I wrote an spin-off story for my L.A. Nocturne series and decided my hero was going to be a guy who grew up in L.A. but hated it. Instead, he lived in the Pacific Northwest, in a town that's modeled on a place called Centralia. Centralia is home to about 18,000 people and it's full of Craftsmen houses and people who own guns and belong to White Nationalist groups. It also has fabulous thrift shops, a real community feeling, and a tiny, family-owned grocery store that showcases apples grown in Washington state. (Cosmic apples are the best I've ever tasted.) 

So the Rezso novels are set in an unnamed PNW town, which works just fine. But now I live in Portugal in a city with hills and cobblestone walks and grafitti and ruined places and incredible history and remarkable beauty. This is my sunset view from the terrace of the apartment I rent. The terrance "sold" the place. I spend more than I want to, but being able to look toward the ocean and see church towers is worth a lot. 

I've been here a little over a  year and I've already written two novellas set here. One is about a vampire killer who goes after a demonic vampire killing immigrants in the Algarve, the coastal area that's home to a lot of Brits and Americans who love it for its heat and similarity to So. California. The other was Second Honeymoon, which is a silly rom com of a story that takes place in a deserted apartment that's basically modeled on mine. Portugal and its second city Porto, don't have the same cachet of other European countries and cities, but it suits me fine. I am a woman of a certain age and the young ones call me Dona Caterina. I sort of like that. Learning the language has been tough. But I feel at home here, and that means I can write the city. Being able to do that tells me I'm at home.

For the Rest of the Year

 I've been quiet on here for the last few months because it has been a crazy time. But thanks to a week of reflection and recharging centered around my landmark birthday yesterday, I now have more focus and clarity on what the last third of the year will be like.

There will be more writing!! As well as another run at attaining USA TODAY bestselling status. Yes, I know I already did it back in 2019-21, but USAT bestseller status is like getting a Michelin star. it doesn't follow the chef, it stays with the restaurant. So just because Katherine Moore won it, doesn't mean I can ue it with any of my other pen names. So I've joined a list-aiming mystery/suspense anthology and my story will be A Woman Presumed. 

I got the idea from a fragment of a news story I heard on the radio years ago about an important man who was murdered, along with the woman in bed beside him who was, "presumed to be his wife." Who the story didn't name, as if she was merely collateral damange to the death of the man, whose name I actually HAVE forgotten.  Wish me well on this journey and you know you'll hear more about it as the list run (which will take a year) progresses. 

I'm also continuing to join boxed sets, including those with proceeds going to charity. (I'm a sucker for charity anthologies because I feel guilty not being able to contribute more financially and I've been in a number of anthologies that have pulled in a lot of money for deserving charities. They're a great bargain for the readers as well.) Look for my fairytale retelling of Beauty and the Beast (Hero's Kiss) in a breast cancer anthology coming soon.

I love fairytale retellings and have a couple queued up. One is a retelling of the Snow Queen. One is another take on East of the Sun, West of the Moon. And I'm kicking off a series called "The Sherwood Chronicles" with a gender-bent take on Robin Hood and her merry companions.

I've been playing with a third pen name, Katia Kozar, these last few months, and "she's" starting to get a little traction. In gneral, this pen name is reserved for stories that my regular pen names don't. They're not cozy romances or mysteries like Katherine Moore writers, and they're not romantic fantasy, urban fantasy or the PNR that Kat Parrish writes.

But both those other pen names will be busy too. Kat's launching a series of space opera-y tales set in my Quincunx universe--a tale of neutral "hospital planets" caught in the middle of a territorial war as an exo-virus rampages through human and alien alike. All the hospital planets are named after famous Earth doctors (real and fictional) and the first three books are called, Kildare, Salk, and Paracelsus.

There will also be two more entries in the Ostrander witches series, with Mother Nature (a tale about Roz Ostrander, who's a weather witch) and then Expecting Magic which is about an Ostrander cousin whose talent is somewhat subtle but whose unborn child is already exhibiting talents. I never expected Deus Ex Magical to kick off a series.

I hope to reactivate (and reinvigorate) this blog with a lot more book reviews. Maybe a few movie reviews. (Was anyone else appalled at the arc for Brad Pitt's character in Lost City?) But I'm really looking forward to the |Weird Al Yankovic movie. 

So it's good to be back.

I hope I'll see you here!

Ukrainian anthologies all around...

 I have a couple of pen names and all of them signed up for anthologies to benefit Ukraine. At least the ones I knew about. There are a bunch of them, and I hope they all make a fortune. Here in Portugal, where I've been living almost a year, there are already refugees being housed by residents, and the price of sunflower oil is soaring. In February, you could buy a liter for two euros. It's now more than four euros. 

Also, one of the biggest grocery chains in the country, with markets all over my city--including one in walking distance--turns out to be run by a Russian firm. So I have modified my shopping habits somewhat. It's the least I can do. 

I do not have a lot of money to donate, but I can write. And since one of my pen names has the USA Today bestselling accolade attached to it, I'd like to think that I can add some value. I hope so. 

Here are some of the collections I'm participating in. They're pretty affordable and they all feature new work from a number of terrific writers. 

The first collection is from the New Romance Cafe. I wrote a new Silver Birch story as Katherine Moore, a sweet little romance called, "The Sadness of Sunflowers." You can buy it here.

Here's the blurb:  

Protect the innocent.

Provide for families.

We stand with Ukraine.

Across the globe authors have come together to provide stories filled with hope, heart and understanding, inspired by the events of February 2022.

STAND FOR UKRAINE is a collection of romance, women’s fiction and poetry. Proceeds go to Save the Children’s efforts to provide Ukrainian children with food, warmth, shelter and psychological support.

The second book is SEEDS OF LOVE, which is available on pre-order at the moment. Here is the blurb for this one. You can help us make a difference.

SEEDS OF LOVE is a romance anthology to benefit Ukraine. This collection of short romance stories

is not available anywhere else. 100% of the royalties will be donated to United Help Ukraine, a charitable organization dedicated to helping the Ukrainian people affected by Russia’s invasion. They are a grassroots, entirely volunteer-based organization that provides aid to wounded Ukrainian warriors, assistance to their families, and support to internally displaced people.

This anthology features 48 authors. The stories include various sub-genres of contemporary romance, paranormal romance, dark romance, and romantic comedy. You can pre-order it here.

SEEDS OF LOVE is only available for a limited time! Stand with the people of Ukraine and get your copy today!

And finally, I have contributed a story as Kat Parrish to BBB Publishing's Ukraine anthology LOVE IS ETERNAL. It will be out at the end of the month and is

available for pre-order for 99 cents right now. My story, "Hunter's Kiss," has never been widely available before. It's a modern magic retelling of Snow White. You can preorder it here for only 9 cents.

If you don't want to buy a book, consider donating to Jose Andres' World Central Kitchen, which has been in Poland feeding refugees since February. 

NPR posted a terrific list of organizations who are providing aid to the people of Ukraine. Find it here.

Etsy.com is making it easy to support Ukrainian artists by purchasing digital goods--artwork and cards and the like. They're waiving selling fees. The prices of some of the artwork is heartbreakingly low. Here's their landing page for Ukrainian artists.