Release Date and Cover Reveal

Houston, We Have A Release Date

A few months ago, The Wildrose Press (TWRP) offered up a contract for Enemy Within, Enemy Games, and for the three, as yet untitled books that will finish out this series. The series has a name now: Chronicles of the Empire and the books will be numbered so it will be easier to know where you are in the arc of the story. 

This is the cover for book one, Enemy Within. The books will be ebook releases with a print on demand option. 

Here's the back cover:

Horrific torture in an alien prison torpedoed Captain Ari Idylle's military career. Stripped of command and banished to her father's scientific expedition to finish a PhD she doesn't want, Ari refuses to fly a desk. She intends to have her command back by any means possible, until pirates commandeer her father's ship, and she's once again a prisoner. Perhaps this cunning captor isn't what he pretends to be. 

As far as Cullin Seaghdh is concerned, the same goes for Ari. Her past association with aliens puts her dead center in Cullin's cross-hairs. If she hasn't been brainwashed and returned as a spy, then she must be part of a traitorous alliance endangering billions of lives. He can't afford the desire she fires within him. His mission comes first. He'll stop at nothing to uncover her true purpose and protect what is his, even if it means her destruction.

The release date for Enemy Within is July 17, 2019. 

Funny Thing Happened Since Last I Was Here

So I live in Florida, now. That two year gap in blogs - that was me working on keeping some people and pets alive. Succeeded with the people. Ultimately lost the battle with the pet as you do when they're as old as he was. (The youngest two are now 15 and they're fine. Ish.)

The move from Washington State to the west (Gulf) coast of Florida was a massive undertaking because it wasn't just my nuclear family, I managed to convince my parents to move with us. Do you know how much stuff you manage to accumulate when you own 5 acres of land, a house, a boat, a tractor - for realz a tractor (and a bull dozer)? Trying to sort through a lifetime of my parents' stuff in a compressed time frame so they could sell the house was intense. But we did it and here we all are. My husbands' parents, his sister and her kids had been in this area for years. This moves a portion of my side of the family into the region. The only ones missing are my sister and her daughter.

That move diagonally across the continent wasn't just a matter of mileage. Culturally, I swear to you I need a mentor to comprehend Florida. While for the most part, we all speak the same language and have base cultural experience in common, the day to day details are totally different. Tiny example - in WA when I go for the annual physical, it's everything - breast exam, pelvic, blood work - everything in one single appointment. Not in Florida. PAP smear and breast exams are a separate appointment. No big deal. It's an expectation reset. One in a long line of expectation resets I've had to navigate since moving. It's good for my brain. I get that. But apparently my brain is a three year old who hasn't had her nap, because once in a while, she plops down on her butt in the middle of whatever I'm trying to cope with, crosses her chubby little arms and refuses to budge.

Banging my forehead against the wall hasn't helped. So I really think there ought to be a mentorship program available. I don't know - maybe through the department of licensing you know? To encourage you to update the plates on your car. Go in, swap your plates, get assigned a cheerful volunteer you can text with things like "Best steak in town in a restaurant that isn't a tourist trap - go!" or "This snake just latched onto my shoe, here's a photo, how loud, exactly should my screams be?"

One of the things I absolutely give Florida props for: you can make an appointment to get your drivers license or your car license plates. An appointment. WA state didn't do that. You took half a day off work, went in, stood in line, and took your chances. Oh. And sunshine. My goodness, the sunshine.

Parenting Fail

I have a confession. Last night I failed as a parent and as an adult. Now I get why my mother TO THIS DAY tells the story of walking the entirety of JFK International Airport trying to find her 8 year old (me) a hotdog and failing. My father had been stationed in Iceland. He'd been there for months while we lived with my mother's parents waiting for Dad to find housing for all of us. When finally he did, my sister and I were taken out of school, removed from our doting grandparents (very likely to my mother's everlasting relief), our beloved felines abandoned - one pregnant - and here we were. About to leave the United States in the middle of winter, bound for the great unknown. We had to get dinner before getting on the plane. I was offered a steak. I wanted a hotdog. Pizza? HOTDOG.

My poor mom. Faced with little kids desperate for some sense of familiarity and comfort and she couldn't make it happen.

This morning I have complete empathy for that twenty-something woman trying to parent an 8 and a 6 year old. This morning, I am also more grateful than ever that I never had children of my own.

At midnight, about an hour and a half after I'd finally gotten to sleep, Autolycus woke me by pulling my hair. Okay. To be fair, he was kneading, but he knew exactly what he was doing. "Mom," he purred, while drooling lovingly into my face, "I'm hungry." I was annoyed, but I got up and made him something to eat.

He snubbed it.

I was more annoyed, but I took it away and offered kibble.

He snubbed it.

Angry at that point, I put the kibble away and climbed back into bed. I must have misunderstood. But the second I put my head on the pillow, there he was. Yanking my hair and, now, licking my face. I got really mad. "WHAT?? What do you want?"

The boy recoiled and slowly, sadly turned his back and curled up. A little orange ball of misery that clearly said I'd stomped on his tiny, tender feelings, you big meanie.

Still grumbling, I got up again and got him water. Maybe that was his issue. I put the dish before him. He turned his face away. His ears drooped. I could almost see his little shoulders shaking in grief.

Oh my gawd. M A S S I V E  G U I L T. Who's supposed to be the adult here? Who's supposed to remember that the boy is aged and ill and that I'm lucky to get to be awakened by him at all? That's right. Me. The cat parent who is failing as a parent on an epic scale. Brilliant. Cue the abject apologies.

He did not want to hear them. Also did not want to be touched. Okay. I deserved that. No problem. Let's try a few more food options, shall we? Let's start with the current favorite - a can of Tiki Cat Lamb and Beef Liver. (Barf.)  As I got yet another plate and dumped grotesque globules of goo thereupon, the DH, awakened by all the drama, rolled out of bed to attend to business. I set the plate of food before the cat.

He ate. No histrionics. No accusation. Just a plain, simple, intimation that I'd been 100% unreasonable about being awakened at midnight so I could dirty four plates, and three of them for nothing.

As the DH and I stood beside the bed waiting for the cat to finish eating (what? You thought he'd get up??) I sighed.

What I said then, I say again this morning: I hope to all the gods that I am the only person on the planet so fatally attracted to creatures that seem bent on exposing my every flaw as a human being.

Repelling Boarders

Shortly after midnight, last night, Autolycus woke me from a sound sleep to indicate that he was hungry and would I please provide him with a midnight snack. This by way of kneading my hair with intent to harm. I rolled out of bed and got the boy a plate of food, which, of course, I had to take *back* to the bed because, what? You expected him to get up?? He tucked in.

I took the opportunity to check on the girls. Cuillean snoozing in her heated bed atop the fridge. Check. Hatshepsut - uh oh - Hatshepsut is stationed at the door to the cockpit. Standing at attention. Her gaze riveted in that clear "Mom, something's out there" gaze I'm finally coming to recognize.

I grab the flashlight. Oh, look. The canvas door has been pulled open. The 2 gallon water jug I put in front of that door (to keep Hatshepsut from letting herself out) has been shoved to one side. Great. We had a visit from the local masked bandit. Except. The compost bag is still inside. Huh. He must not have gotten in past the water jug. Flick off the light and start to turn away.

Hatshepsut does not abandon her post. In fact, she repositions. It isn't quite a shout of 'you idiot, it's still out there' but it's close. So I scan the cockpit. Looks clear. And I open the door. That's when I hear it - this odd, metallic scraping sound. Thinking I'm walking into an enclosed space that contains a raccoon, I hesitate, my heart going from 'wish I were asleep' to 'oh shit' in a flash. But no. The noise is coming from outside the boat. I flip on the overhead light with the intent of scaring away anything or anyone lingering outside my boat. Doesn't work. Just blinds me. Flip the light back off, suck up my courage and unzip the door to outside.

There's the raccoon. On the finger pier, just aft of my boat, staring at me over the corpse of a brand new 2lb bag of cat kibble.

No longer merely human, I hiss at the little bastard and climb out onto the transom. He grabs that bag of kibble in his teeth and bolts. I pursue, still hissing. It's raining. It's almost 1AM. I am dressed in a tee shirt and a pair of fuzzy slippers. But I chase that damned raccoon up the dock for several yards - to that light post Autolycus is looking at in this photo - until the raccoon decides discretion is the better part of supper.

He drops the bag of kibble and makes his break.

I only wanted the kibble. That's Autolycus's favorite. Stuff is $12 a 2lb bag. That raccoon can just pay for his own damned bag of noms.

I only hope none of my neighbors were up at that hour of the night. . .

The Lost Kitten

Had a dream last night. I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say there were two kittens. One plump and happy and outgoing. The other was smaller and shy. The two were sisters from the same litter (and thus, ostensibly, ought to have been the same size.) Insert all the random weirdness that is dreaming here. Until. Somewhere in all of that nonsense, I realized I hadn't seen shy kitten in a very long time. She hadn't come out to eat or anything. Uh oh. Cue the dramatic and heart-wrenching John Williams score. I HAD TO FIND HER. And I was scared to find her all at the same time for fear that I'd come across only her dry, shriveled up corpse. I did find her, curled up in a clothes drawer (even my subconscious gets cats) with her sister. She was tiny. Pitifully thin and wasted. But not dead. The dream ended with all of the emergency measures and plans to nurse her back to health.

Why tell you this? Because that kitten is writing.

I haven't written a single sentence on any story since the middle of November. (The kitten I haven't seen in a long time.) Sure, there are excuses and moderately good reasons for it. But the fact remains, I've been looking for that particular kitten for the past two weeks and with this dream, it's clear I'm holding a limp body in my hands - a body that's just about ready to give up unless I initiate some drastic intervention.

For the curious, the fat, outgoing kitten is day to day life - the things that suck up all of your attention when given the chance.

Funny. I know what to try for a sick kitten. Droppers of water and kitten formula. Warmth. Physical contact close to the heart (kittens cue off of mom's heart beat, so tucking a sick kitten against your skin close to your heart helps.) I don't know what to do for sick writing. Except maybe to approach it gently with the intention of dribbling in a few words at a time many times a day. I'm told it's a sign of a healthy mind if you begin taking positive action to solve problems in your dreams. Don't recall where I saw that, but I'll take it. And trust that it will spill over to actually solving the not writing problem. I hope.

The Worst Day Living on a Boat

The worst of living aboard a boat isn't when it's stormy and the boat is bouncing all over the place. It isn't when lightning strikes in the waterway not 100' from the boat - though that WILL get your attention. It isn't even when the temperatures are hovering in the single digits.

The single worst day living aboard a boat is the day the head (toilet) breaks. Because you never find out it's broken until you need to flush. And let me tell you, to fix the head in a boat requires taking the whole thing apart. Raw sewage is always involved. Bad day.

But second only to that are the days you walk all the way up to the showers, undress to get into said shower, and discover you left your towel on board the boat. A football field or more away.

For someone without a sentimental bone in her body, I am SO nostalgic over the days when my beloved would bring me a towel warm from the dryer as I got out of the shower. Sigh.

A Treatise by Autolycus

It is a fact of life. Cats like to walk on keyboards. Apparently, they get extra points if they can power down your box in the process - bonus bonus points if you're in the middle of working on something vital. Like a paper or a book on deadline.

One day, whilst editing the feline contributions to a document I'd been working on, it occurred to me that I'd had it all wrong. Maybe cats aren't walking on keyboards just to annoy us - certainly it's a factor - but what if it's not the actual point? Could they be trying to communicate? To someone or something? I resolved to find out. When one of the cats expresses interest in my keyboard, I open a blank document and let the feline author have free rein. I can't interpret what is produced. Not yet. And again, I'm plagued by the disturbing notion that the cats ARE trying to communicate. Just not with me. And I'm left wondering if not with me then with whom?

Reproduced below, 100% faithful to the original both in content and formatting is Autolycus's second, and thus far, lengthiest treatise. I have no clue what it means.

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Code? Instructions? A rant against the flavor of cat food served for supper?

My Thirty Degree, Guaranteed Cranky, Threshold

Barriers. I've talked about them before. These are the things that keep us from doing what we all know we're supposed to do. For some people (me) it's exercise. I know I should. And I want to - I really do. 30 minutes of moderate exercise each day staves off migraines in a big way. So, honest. I'm motivated.

And yet.

Something stands in my way. That's a barrier. The trick is figuring out what that barrier is. For some people, it's as simple as packing a workout bag and setting out exercise clothes so the morning is a no brainer. In my case, It's the cold. Once the outdoor temperatures drop below 30 degrees, I'm done. Guaranteed grump point. No. I will not go out on an interval training walk/run. My toes are already painfully frozen in my sneakers. There aren't enough clothes in the world to make it okay. Going out on a bike ride is out of the question, too. My fingers and toes ache. What I really want to do is go out into the frigid morn and slam my face into the wind chill that riding would entail. Ever frozen the snot in your nose? Trust me. Do not want.

Last night, it struck me that I've filled my life with ways to make life harder. Plenty of people don't have a dishwasher, so I can't complain about that. Much. I *do* when I'm washing my third sink full of dishes for the day. But you know, cooking. Just cooking is more difficult - I'm working with a two burner propane stove with an oven the size of a bread box. Not to mention a tiny refrigerator and no microwave. I can't pull something out of the freezer and put it on the dinner table an hour later. This has done unfortunate things to my culinary skills and to my diet. Heck. Just taking a shower means kitting up and walking the equivalent of a football field, in the freezing dark, so I can plug the marina shower with quarters in exchange for two minutes of hot water. Then there's the walk back. Managing electrical load - I cannot be warm and vacuum the floors at the same time. It will blow the circuit breaker. The heat has to be shut down, then I can tidy up. This is essential, because my other guaranteed grump point is having my floors crunch when I walk on them. I've tried to find a medication to treat that.

99% of my barriers come down to the cold. So many people are bothered by the lack of sunlight at this time of year. Not me. Couldn't care less. In fact, I'd be grateful for the return of the rain. It would be warmer and as a  boater, I have the gear for 40 degrees and rain slanting in sideways. Frost? Not so much. If it snows this year, I may snap, take an ax to the dock lines and aim for the south Pacific. I do still love my boat - even with the challenges and frustrations. And yes. I am well aware that makes me perverse. Hush up and help me find a place in Fiji or Tahiti where I can moor the boat.

Best Grass on the Dock

Two or three hundred feet up the dock from us, there's a dinghy. It's a sad, half-deflated rigid bottom inflatable tucked between the bow of its center cockpit sailboat and the dock. Until last fall, it hung on the dinghy davits off the back of the abandoned sailboat. A pair of seagulls had been using the dinghy as their nesting platform (and causing all kinds of havoc when anyone tried to pass by in the waterway behind the boat). The port finally called the owner and asked him to move the dinghy.

He did. He put it right there against the dock. Without cleaning out the accumulation of nesting material and guano.

As you can see, that dinghy grew a bumper crop of grass. How Hatshepsut found this so far from our boat is a mystery to me. And perhaps it's better that way. I have enough gray hair. Maybe she simply smelled the ripening odor of aging seagull poop and followed her nose. Whatever it was, we were outside on the docks one day and she led me down to this dinghy. She gingerly climbed inside and began eating the grass. This has gone on one each day it hasn't been raining. Mind you, I buy this cat grass from the local health food store. Wheat grass. Lush. Green. Fresh. She appreciates it. We go through a ritual when I come home with groceries. She sticks her nose in each of the bags looking while I sing "Hatshepsut, look! I brought you a treat!" I put down her container of live grass and she proceeds to mince up blades of grass and scatter them all over the white cockpit.

The grass in the dinghy is different. Sure, she pulls it out, too, but that grass she actually eats. Consumes it as if it nourishes her in some fashion that the wheat grass simply can't.

I know it's blurry, but your eyes do not deceive you. Those are bones. What this means is that my youngest feline prefers to eat only grass nourished by the corpses of dead baby seagulls.

Musical Spring

For your listening pleasure. Frog song in Western Washington. This was recorded at my parents' house which is in the midst of wetlands. I went out to the front porch to record. There's nothing to see in the video - the lights that appear briefly are a neighboring house.

 

I love the frogs and listening to them sing is one of the things I miss living on the boat. No frogs on salt water, alas. So every spring, I go spend a night at my folks' place. Just to get my hit.

Apologies May Be the Death of Me

I had to apologize to my mom today. I called her up to deliver my apology, so naturally, she answered on speaker phone. Fortunately, it was because she was on her hands-free set in the car. (Begin PSA: Cellphone use without a hands-free device of some kind will get you stopped and ticketed in Washington state! End PSA.)

Mom and my sister had some concerns about my health. I'd made light of them, but asked my doctor about their specific issue just the same. Why leave any base not covered, right? The doctor assured me there was nothing at all to worry about. Yay. But still. I'd realized that I maybe hadn't handled my family's concerns gracefully. Thus the phone call. I made my apology.

Mom said, "Eh, I didn't feel blown off. If I had I would have told you. We're family. We shouldn't have to worry about how you or I interprets what the other says."

I can see the point. But I think it's precisely because we are family - and I value both of my parents and the relationship I have with each of them - that it's vital to make apologies when I've been callous about their feelings. The death of any given relationship rarely comes from one major injury. It comes from a thousand tiny cuts that aren't bandaged with a simple 'I'm sorry'.

It's so easy to take family for grated and assume that apologies aren't necessary. It seems really twisted to me that it's often easier to apologize to a stranger than to a loved one. Or is that just me?

Maybe it's harder to apologize to someone I care about because I already feel small for having hurt whoever it was. If the person is REALLY mad or upset, I'll feel even worse. There are huge (possibly selfish) emotional stakes in procuring forgiveness. And what if you don't? What then? I totally get not approaching someone I care about to apologize. It feels so like I'm yanking the scab off of a wound that may make me bleed out. Yet if I don't, the fact that I've potentially been a jerk to someone I love spins round and round in my head, feeding the 'you're worthless' voices that occasionally pop up.

This is where being socially awkward is like the internet. On the internet, you don't feed the trolls. When you're socially awkward, you don't feed The Voices. They have enough fuel already, thanks.

Cover for Enemy Mine

It was a priority-two alert for beautiful Commander Cashel Khaleize: a contract put out on the life of Xiao Zhong. Professionally, Xiao was the Captain she reported to. Personally, he was man she desired. But as female Guild Assassin Mekise Tollenga closes in, Xiao wonders if even Cashel can be trusted with his safety. And with a tenuous bond between them, Cashel wonders how far she’s willing to go to earn that trust.



Do the cover gods at Berkley love me, or what? Heaven knows I love this cover. ENEMY MINE is set in the same universe as ENEMY WITHIN and ENEMY GAMES. If you've read the first novel (ENEMY WITHIN) you may recognize the hero of this sexy novella. This story is hot. It is has some very minor BDSM elements to it. The story will be available April 3rd from the vendor of your choice in e-formats only. Several booksellers already have the novel listed for pre-order.

Oh, Temptation

A few weeks ago, the DH ordered a new laptop online. During the course of the transaction, he input my cellphone number. The computer company promptly passed that cellphone number to its outsourced marketing group. Which has been calling my phone daily in a vain attempt to get me to purchase an extended warranty.

Now, DH using my cell phone number in this fashion is completely legit. It used to be our home phone number. You know. When we had a house. And a land line. So while it's now a cell phone that lives in my pocket and that runs my life, it is still ostensibly the family phone number. That doesn't mean I want phone calls trying to find out how I intend to vote (tell you what - check back in November, k?) or trying to convince me to buy some widget or another.

I've stopped answering 800 numbers, blocked numbers, or numbers I don't recognize. If a call is from a real live person who actually wants to talk to me, they leave messages. My mystery 800 number didn't. A quick reverse look up and I knew who'd been calling at 10am every day for two weeks. It was at that point that my imagination kicked in and let me tell you.

The temptation to use my power for evil rather than for good is compelling.

Now, I am SO tempted to answer that call. Here's my imagined script:

Marketeer: How do you like that new computer?
Me: What computer?
Marketeer: You bought a model xyz brand abc computer on this date.
Me, putting on grim voice: Oh, I get it. I'm sorry. What's the name on the invoice?
Marketeer gives me my DH's name.
Me: Who did you say you were with again? I'm going to need all of your information for the police report since this is clearly a violation of the restraining order on my ex.
At this point, I have a mental bet with myself that my marketeer would hang up on me.

I haven't actually pulled this stunt. And I won't. It's turned into a story idea, though. That's all it will remain - a work of fiction. I don't want to belittle, make light of, or abuse a system put in place to protect those people who are actually being preyed upon.

Course, another bonus for me: Here it is, Monday afternoon and no phone call from that 800 number. Maybe after two weeks of unanswered calls, they finally figured out I didn't want to talk to them?

All Hallows

Find me at the Darker Temptations blog today, talking about the Witches' Holiday.

Interview and Book Giveaway

I am being interviewed today on My Bookish Ways. Have a look, say hello, maybe win a signed book.

Second Book Sighting

Enemy Games is out in stores on May 3rd. One of the perks of having written the book is that I get a box of books a week or so before the actual release date. This is so I can read through the book before it releases and obsess over all of the typos, repeated words and other assorted mistakes we either failed to catch or that otherwise slipped through the cracks in the final editting phases. Yes. That sound you hear is me, pounding my head against the desk. The errors so far are relatively minor, but I am SO annoyed I missed them. I guess it's true. You can only read through a manuscript so many times before you simply stop seeing what's actually on the page. Arg.

On another note, though, I love this cover. I'd spent some time on the internet surfing for images of abandoned, run down industrial-looking sites. There are some amazing photographs of that sort of thing out there in the world. I forwarded a few to Berkley's art department. They were photos that I thought captured the feel, if not the exact impression, of the space station in the story. The cover artist really did a nice job of capturing that run-down, held together with bailing twine and a prayer look I'd wanted to convey - even if there really aren't windows in space.

I picked up the box of books from the post office, opened it, admired the book, then ran for the car. It wasn't until much later that evening that DH and I really took a good look. Did you catch it? The print beneath my name on the front cover? I hadn't. When I did, I had to do a double take. Here it is, blown up.

Yes. That says 'National Bestselling Author of Enemy Within'. I stared at it for a full minute, at least, because this was news to me. The first book had hit a list? When? Where? Still uncertain, I emailed my agent. She called the editor and then rang me. Apparently, at some point unknown to me, Enemy Within DID hit a best seller list with one of the national bookstore chains. (We're trying to find out which one - more for curiosity's sake than anything else.) It's funny. It feels a little like cheating, when most of us think of the New York Times list or the USA Today list, but since neither of those lists is an actual report of books selling the most copies, maybe the bookstore list, which is a direct reflection of sales, is equally valid. Either way. I'm tickled. And heck. Maybe it's a start?