Happy New Year!

hugs to all

Cover art for drive your truck

Pre-order it here!

I'm a pre-order!

Drive Your Truck, available from Dreamspinner in January, is up for pre-order. It's 1.00 off right now, too!

Go get it!

preview of Cereus Rescue

Hey y'all

Yep. Comes out on the 17th. Yay! Sorry for the delays. They are totally my fault along with BA's.

Here's a bit from Cereus Rescue

It was snowing. Like whoa. Like a lot. Etu sat at the window and stared at it.

Pretty snow. Lightening's heat warmed his back.

"It is. It makes it seem like we're all alone."

Etu and me. Etu and me. Lightning sounded so pleased.

"That's right."

Lightning had finally allowed him to close the door, so there was that at least.

Lightning's warm tongue licked along his ear and there was a wave of want.

"I know, bear. Some day."

When?

"I wish I knew."

Lightning sighed, warm air blowing over his neck.

"I'm sorry, bear. I am."

No sorry for my Etu.

"I wish I was a bear."

You would be a beautiful bear.

"Thank you. I'd be a skinny one, for sure." He snuggled in.

Mine. More and more that thought was coming from Lightning.

Etu chuckled. "And you're mine."

Yes. Lightning pressed close, heavy against his back.

"Mmm." He sighed, so pleased. So happy.

Lightning's weight seemed to shift, his fur becoming softer.

"Love you, Lightning."

"Love you, Etu." The voice was deep, husky, rough as if from misuse.

He stilled. "Bear?" Could it be?

"Etu," Lightning repeated, and a hand slid along his arm. "You are soft."

"Oh, God. Please. Please say it's real." He leaned back, feeling skin, muscles, not fur.

"I'm real, Etu." Lightning's hand took his chin and turned his head.

Oh. Oh, his bear was a beautiful man.

"Oh, my bear." Pale and broad, with a chest full of white hair, Lightning looked like he was kissed by snow. The eyes, though, those were the same. Like dark little buttons.

"Etu..." Lightning leaned in, their lips pressing together.

Oh, he moaned and pushed into the kiss. He'd fought the urge to be erect around his bear, resisted the urge to rub, but it had been getting harder and harder lately.

Long arms wrapped around him, Lightning pulling him in close.

"You shifted for me. Thank you. Thank you, love."

"Wanted you." Lightning was so warm, even as a man.

"Yes." He reached out to touch the soft belly. Tell me it's okay.

"It's okay."

Lightening pressed their lips back together again. Etu's fingers pressed flat against Lightning's belly. Lightning breathed, ab muscles flexing with it.

"So good." He moaned low, his palms aching.

"Because you're mine." The husky tone remained in Lightning's voice.

"Yes. Yes, I'm yours."

XXOO

Julia

top ten things a decade of editing has taught me

Hey y'all

These are the top ten right now because they're all things I encountered in my last edit!

Put your name in your MS. Spell it right. Seriously

NO FORMATTING that the pub didn't ask for. No weird style sheets, macros, highlighting, etc. Just no.

Run spell check judiciously. Don't accept all the things it tells you to do. Check for extra spaces between words. Track changes can do that

Put your website and social media links in your bio! There's nothing worse than finding a new author you love in an anthology and having to dig to China to find their other books, or to see if they have any. Most readers will give up.

Read your blurb. Out loud. Make sure it makes sense, tells enough of the story to hook readers but not tell the whole story, and make sure it's free of errors.

Do a find for em dashes and ellipses. Eliminate half of both.

Try to work with the publisher you're working with at their pace. They all do things differently. Don't tell publisher X that publisher Y is better. Even if it's true. ;)

Don't use chapter headings that don't say "Chapter" in them. In the day of digital tagging at places ibooks etc, even cute and clever chapter headings like, "Dog's day in heaven" should be prefaced with Chapter Thirteen. That's how they get tagged in ebooks.

Do your research. Put your states in the right place. Make sure you CAN actually use that as lube.

Everyone has a different voice, so stick to your guns, but make sure you're defending your voice when you refuse an edit, and not just being defensive. This is the hardest one for me as a writer, and I'm finally learning to let go.

I'm sure there are scads more but that's enough for now. What have y'all learned during the editing process? From either side.

XXOO

Julia

who gets a cold sore on their eyeball?

no kidding

Eyeball.

Stress, apparently. It amazes me, since I've never had a cold sore in my life.

So, what am I trying to de-stress?

I'm gonna sit and write.

XXOO

Julia

Peppermint, Cereus, and quitting my day job, again

So excited, y'all. I get to focus on only writing after the 1st of January. Most of y'all know (and if you don't, you live under a rock) that I've been doubling as publisher at Torquere Press since it opened in 2003. (Lord) Well, now I am stepping down and letting the corporation close, so my SIL Kristi can open a new version called Torquere Press LLC. The corp is not in trouble, btw, this is all just legal mumbo jumbo because of where we incorporated and where Kristi lives. She and her partner Joanna (no relation to me, as my Talbot is a randomly picked pseudonym and hers is real, thank you) have lots of great ideas, and I wish them all the best with TQ.

Now I can join RWA as a voting member, and join Rainbow Authors. I can write more and stress less. I can squeal about the new contract I signed with Samhain for a May release. MMF menage. Yum.

Also, my peppermint twist is out at Changeling Press. Strange Bedfellows has lumberjacks, a dentist, and pain reliever fueled sex. Woo. Snowflake, my logger elf, is based loosely on Kris Norris, the loudest Canadian I know, and a fab writer. Find it here on sale!

A lot of folks have been asking about the next Cereus book. I know it's been on the coming soon at TQ a few times, and as authors we tried, but two of us moved, and that horked the schedule. Not TQ'a fault at all. It will be out this month, and it's a doozy! Demons, weres, vamps. Yay!

I also have the 4th Elemental Ops book coming from Changeling late this month. I'll holler as soon as I have a coming soon link!

It's beginning to look like Christmas!

XXOO

Julia

My Peppermint Twist comes out this week!

One old peppermint candy. A cracked tooth. Three of Santa's elves, one a dentist, two of them horny lumberjacks...

Yep. Seriously.

Check out the coming soon!

XXOO

Julia

Insomnia sucks

rec me a good read, y'all

Java Rocks

Hey y'all!

I have a new story out in the Hot Off the Press Anthology at Dreamspinner Press! In fact, I am the lead-off story. The stories all had to be about writing. So, I wrote a story about a writer who hates coffee doing research in a coffee shop. Jerrod is an adorable geek.

His soon to be lover? Hot, tattooed java house owner.

Here's a wee bit.

JERROD REDUS swirled his tepid tea in his mug, wishing for the fifth time in less than an hour that his protagonist drank tea. No, he had to write a damned coffee drinker, which he knew dick-all about. Not only was his main character a coffee drinker, he owned a coffee shop.

That stupid, simple fact meant that Jerrod had written himself into a corner, and he was going to have to do some damned research. He had a personal assistant. Someone to handle e-mails and read- throughs and scheduling appointments. Most of the time, though, Jerrod preferred to do his research by himself, for himself. Nothing beat experience for making something ring true in a book. Jerrod had done ride-alongs with EMTs and police, had interviewed FBI agents and politicians, and had gone surfing and mountain climbing. The problem was that he hated coffee. Sighing, he sat back in his chair and rested his head against the little neck roll. He’d bought the chair when his first novel had been hailed as a breakout success, when he’d realized he’d earned his advance. The poor thing looked a little shabby now, but he loved the soft leather and cushy seat too much to replace it.

He finally saved his doc, opened his e-mail, and shot off a request to his PA, Patty. “Need a work-along with a small, privately owned coffee shop, ASAP.” She would do the legwork for him, make all the arrangements. All he would have to do was show up and hold his breath so he didn’t have to smell the evil demon brew. Hopefully he’d get a good pastry out of the deal. He should have put that in his e-mail. So Jerrod sent another. “Make sure there are cookies and muffins.”

There. He grinned, rising so he could stretch out his back and neck. Joints cracked all over his body. Man, he needed to get out more, maybe do some hiking or something. When the writing flowed, he stayed in like a hermit, clacking away at his keyboard. He’d tried voice capture software, but he liked the connection to the words that typing gave him. He grabbed his mug again and headed to the kitchen of his condo, ready for something to settle him down for the evening. Chamomile didn’t do it for him; he liked hibiscus. Lowered his blood pressure, soothed his throat. He’d have that and an almond cookie before he took his shower. Jerrod liked his routine, liked to know what his schedule looked like weeks in advance.

His nerves jangled a bit when he thought about taking time out to do the research he had to do. The coffee shop looked to be as big a character as anything else in the book, damn it. He had to make it real, had to make people believe it. He listened to the kettle ramp up, bubbling, then whistling. His sister gave him electric kettles all the time, maybe once a year. He preferred his mom’s old stovetop model. Tradition. Habit. The scent of a fresh cup of tea settled his nerves. Coffee shop. Just for a few days. He could do this.

Go find it here!

You can also get it in paperback!

Move is over, and I should be back on track here now! Hooray! I have many thoughts and feels and newses.

Hugs

Julia

time to get back to life

Moving sucks up a lot of energy. Just sayin'.

That's not why I haven't been posting lately, though. That was because of a stalkery happening that frankly, worried me. A lot. Anyone who thinks I have something to hide is flat out wrong, but to prove you know where I live and that you spend a good bit of free time stalking my social media to prove your conspiracy theories is really, really disturbing.

So, I've been hiding. Worrying it like a dog with a bone. Weighing the dangers to my safety against the danger to my career if I just go silent.

Then a good friend from long ago reminded me I've been here before. With a lot more dangerous folks. Remind me to tell y'all about my second roommate in Colorado sometime, y'all. THAT was scary. This? This is mostly annoying. Or as another good friend posted this am, don't let someone rent space inside your hear unless they're good people.

So, we're unpacked. Ideally, no one has the new address, which is good. Halloween was fab, with many miniature princesses and witches, along with a few superheroes and power rangers.

I have a new release coming up with Dreamspinner, a story called Java Rocks in the Hot Off the Press anthology. Find it here on pre-order!

Working on Minerva Howe's next book. Was supposed to have it done Oct 1. O.O Eek. But, it's doing well. So yay.

My brother comes tomorrow. Also eek. But the house is ready and I could use a day in Old Town. And a margarita.

XXOO, y'all. Don't let anyone get you down!

Julia

so, do I need to worry about someone bashing me with a bottle in a store?

Happy Halloween!

I had a horror story to post, but stalkers need to be fed and I won't do that. Suffice to say, if I end up bashed over the head with a bottle in a store, look to the Pacific Northwest. Just sayin'

we get to see how many kiddos we get at the new house tonight! Woo

I love candy

XXOO

Julia

Moving sucks

but! we're in the new house.

I feel like a bad blogger. You can tell when we closed on the new house, yeah? I haven't posted since then, really. we turn in the keys to the rental Monday, and I couldn't be happier.

XXOO y'all

Julia

Elusive sleep and silly words on the page

Insomnia has always been an issue for me. It's hormonal. Used to be the last three days before my period, but these days, at 44, my hormones are screwed, so for the two weeks between ovulation and period, I am a rampaging monster, all aches, pains, haywire nerve endings and throbbing veins in my legs. TMI, I know, but it's important to set the scene.

So, anyway, I can't sleep. I'm trying to write instead. Problem is, I can't make sense of anything. Nothing wants to be right when my brain knows it should be asleep. No one writes shit like, 'Twas brillig in the slithey toves" when they're high. They do it when they can't sleep. When you're high you think you're brilliant. When you're sleep deprived, you just want your fingers to work. Sigh.

Also, I want ice cream, and we have none. RR, New Mexico? Not a late night town. Groceries all close at 1am. Bah. BAH

Anyone want to play Scrabble?

XXOO

Julia

working on moving - or how a writer loses 2 weeks of writing time

Tuesday- closing 9:30 to almost noon because escrow officer was late

On the plus side, I learned all about what our realtor used to do for a living, and about his inn in Espanola.

Wednesday - took load to house, paid bills, took load to house. Door guy. Bought paint. Turned water on

Thursday- painted new office, cleaned out nasty kitchen drawers, dismantled weird kitchen VCR and icky space saver can opener. Meet floor guy for estimate, met with exterminator

Friday- Tried to meet ADT but failed. Got groceries. Napped because otherwise I was going to die

Upcoming

Saturday- teach gluten free baking class, take 3 loads to house, second coat of paint in office

Sunday- PAINT ALL THE THINGS

Monday- Do non-writerly work. All of it. Now.

Tuesday: Try to write O.O Meet door guy for estimate

Wednesday- sit at new house and cool my heels while waiting for ADT guy at some point between 12-5pm

Thursday- Moving boxes and painting anything not done

Friday- prepare for yard sale. make signs. WRITE

Saturday- yard sale - Anyone want shoes size W 9 1/2 to 10- carlos santana boots, steve madden heels, steve madden boots, etc- hardly or never worn

Sunday- recover from yard sale

Monday- take loads of stuff to house to save ob movers whose estimate freaked us out

Tuesday- clean all the things for new appliances to arrive

Pant. Pant.

Yikes

XXOO

Julia

BA Tortuga Talks about Say Something

Grins

Hey, y’all. I wanted to take over my wife’s (still incredibly cool, btw) blog and squeal about my new release, Say Something.

Sometimes you write something and it’s more than another story. Sometimes it burrows down into your soul and you find yourself lost in a whirlwind of information.

These boys are that for me.

Mike and Jenson were born in a rush. I was taking a few days off writing. I’d just finished writing The Terms of Release and I wasn’t ready to take on another intense pair.

I wasn’t ready, damn it, but the boys didn’t give a rat’s ass.

Kenny Chesney came on the radio, I started crying, and six months later, I stopped.

Mike and Jen are dear to me and now they’re y’all’s. Be good to them, huh? They deserve it.

Much love, y’all.

Say Something is out today from Dreamspinner Press and I’m proud enough to bust.

Official Blurb:

Jenson has loved Mike his whole life, but he has never known how to tell Mike how he feels. After high school Mike leaves for college and his Hollywood dream, while cowboy Jenson stays behind in their small East Texas hometown. Neither man knows what to say to go beyond friendship, even though they come together through all of the best and worst times of their lives. The most amazing moments keep bringing them back together, but through huge love and terrible loss, sickness and health, their timing never seems right to take their relationship to the next level. When the universe gives them one final chance, Jenson must overcome his fear and say the most important something before it's too late.

Paperback buy link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=5481

Ebook buy link:

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=5480

Where to find BA:

http://www.batortuga.com -- website

batortuga.blogspot.com – blog

@batortuga on twitter

https://www.facebook.com/batortuga

Excerpt:

He parked his old Chevy out on the maintenance road and watched the last rays of the sun go down. He pulled out the pack of smokes and tapped the end against his palm a few times before pulling off the plastic. He’d have one while he waited.

The humidity made everything lazy, even the mosquitos, and he couldn’t help but think that tomorrow he was going to be out here, just another redneck driving down gravel roads acting like that was something special, and Mike would be in his perfectly clean little Toyota with his boxes and his books, heading to the East Coast.

It wasn’t fucking fair.

Oh, not that Jenson wanted to go back East anywhere. What he wanted was Mike. The trip to the beach had given them some stolen kisses and a few quick gropes, but Jenson wanted more.

He wanted full-on naked. He wanted to fuck. He wanted to hear Mike beg for it. He knew Mike would.

The very thought made his dick hard in his jeans and made him curse when his cigarette burned his fingers.

He heard a husky chuckle. “You ever going to learn how to smoke, man?”

Jenson turned to see Mike wandering over, coming to sit next to him on the tailgate. On the wrong damned side.

“Scoot, man,” Mike said, and he did, because he was always willing to do for Mike.

“What’s up, Mike?”

“Been a long couple days. You?”

“Been trying to decide if I have to apply for jobs.” He sighed. “You all packed?”

“I am. Yeah. I wish you were coming. It looks like a kick-ass campus.” Mike took a smoke, lit it, and the flame shuddered in the wind.

“I ain’t smart like you.” What else could he say?

“I’m not all that. I just….” Mike shrugged. What was Mike going to say? That Mike had tried? Because that was the God’s honest truth. Mike fought for it, worked hard.

Jenson did too. It just didn’t matter. He wasn’t school material. He lit another cigarette, trying not to cough. Lord.

“You think you’ll stay at home?”

Like it mattered. Neither one of them could afford long-distance phone calls, and Jenson, well, shit, he wasn’t much of a letter writer. Maybe postcards, if he remembered to buy stamps.

Jenson nodded. “If they’ll let me. If not, I’ll try cowboying out with the C Bar.” Mr. Carlson ran a huge Beefmaster operation.

“Such a cowboy.” Not like Mike. He was gonna be something bigger than a shiftless drover.

“I don’t know what else to do. Be a drunk like my dad, I guess.” He laughed, trying not to sound so damned bitter.

Labels in fiction, or why I hate the word Manlove

Okay, I know it might piss some folks off, and that's not my aim here. I want to say that upfront. I'm making a very personal statement about the label "manlove" as it applies to what I read and and write.

I hate the word Manlove. At its most harmless it seems relatively easy to understand. A construct, like bromance or manhug, used as a descriptive. People wield it to indicate male/male fiction in the same way they say I write m/m, pronounced em-em at conventions or to people on the bus who ask what people write when faced with a writer. For what it's worth, I also dislike the em-em phenomenon, as well, because it's a way of ducking the commitment to say I write gay.

Now, don't get me wrong. I understand the distinction people are trying to make. The long and rampaging argument about GLBT fiction versus gay romance versus women writing romance with two men has worn people down, and they see Manlove as a compromise, I think, one that removes the need for the bluster, one that finds commonality with other writers who pen the same kind of prose. I have more than once been told by readers that I write really average guys who don't seem gay so much as into this one man they've fallen for, which is absolutely fair. I like to explore all sots of relationships without stereotypes, I think. At least I hope that's where I land in the great scheme. I can happily point out a good many books I've written, though, where the characters identify as everything from in the closet to way out and flaming!

! Why then do I hate Manlove?

Because I think it's disingenuous, at best. At worst, it's like "girl on girl action" a phrase designed to delineate lesbian film/fiction/media from girls getting it on to titillate men. Saying I read and write Manlove is tantamount to admitting I'm willingly misappropriating someone's culture, that I'm co-opting part of the GLBTQ experience for my own use and discarding the rest. As someone who self-identifies as part of the queer community (a woman married to a woman, mostly bi on the sliding scale of sexuality) the whole idea of taking the LGBT out of gay romance makes me squirmy and uncomfortable. The idea, too, that readers want what one m/f author at a con recently called "Alpha-Alpha males" in their romance and that no gay man can provide that also makes me a little nuts. I know at least three gay men writing romance alongside all of us right now that would qualify as the kind of alpha males readers love to see.

I think that taking the LGBT out of the "m/m" romance equation widens the gap between detractors who say women shouldn't be writing gay romance rather than closes it. I think,very much like Emma Watson recently said so eloquently, gender (and I'll add in sexuality) should be a spectrum. It's okay for men to be sensitive. It's okay for women to be strong. And it's okay for gay men and lesbians and bisexuals to be represented in all sorts of different ways, rather than being pushed aside in favor of a fetish-ized fantasy of men on men or girl on girl action. The implication of Manlove just makes me grit my teeth before I shout, "You keep saying you support the gay community, so why isn't it okay to be gay? Why does it have to be Manlove?"

I'm eager to hear what y'all think. Feel free to discuss, but please keep it friendly!

XXOO

Julia

Georgia Knights excerpt

Hey y'all!

How about some menage action?

"Alton has a place almost up to the falls," Caid whispered, breath hot on her neck.

"Okay." She sounded like a phone sex worker, all breathy and husky.

They packed up the pizza and headed out, Alton hustling them back to her little rental SUV. He didn't give either one of them time to think, either, just groped them both impartially.

"Alton, you're dangerous. Sit in the back seat."

"What? Why?" He pouted at her, but Caid punched his shoulder.

"Because no one can drive with you all over them, Alt. Get."

She gave in to her baser instincts and went up on tiptoe to kiss the corner of Alton's mouth. "I have to focus, huh?"

"Oh." Alton blinked, those pretty gray eyes bright. "Got it. I'll just sit in the back and..." He made an unmistakable motion with his hand.

She swatted him, chuckling. "Now, now. Don't pop too soon." She winked at Caid, offering him a quick kiss, too.

Caid surprised her with a kiss that curled her toes, capturing her mouth for a long moment before moving away. He went and sat in the passenger seat, staring, focused.

"Oh." Wow. Okay. Driving.

Driving would be good.

Really.

"Yeah. Turn left at the light, honey." Alton pointed before sliding into the backseat, his hand patting her ass on the way by.

"Georgia." She got moving, got behind the wheel and got them going. The windows were down, the wind cooling off her too-hot skin, even as the humidity made things a little sticky.

"Huh?" Both Alton and Caid said it, both of them staring at her.

Lord. It was like watching howler monkeys tilt their heads when they heard a whistle. They were never going to stop with the pet names. "Nothing. Left?"

"Left." The town they'd gone to was only fifteen minutes down the road or so from Haley Falls, which kind of boggled her high desert girl mind. Where she lived you had to drive two hours to get anywhere.

It got darker and darker as she drove, the trees thick. She started to worry -- what exactly was she doing? Heading into the woods with two men she didn't know?

"Okay, right here, sugar." Warm hands fell on her shoulders, Alton rubbing a little.

She slowed down, those thumbs working out the tension that had started building.

"It's okay, honey." What, did they both read minds? Caid was all about soothing her, too.

They parked in front of a simple, sweet-looking cabin, all of them breathing hard enough that the windows fogged up. The sound of hunting hounds made her jump a little. "Should we go in?"

"You bet. Come on in, folks." Alton led the way, the place a combination of historical log cabin and newer log home. The inside was just as much a mixture, with simple hooked rugs and a couple of fine art prints on the walls. That was about all she got to notice before Alton turned and grabbed her, though, spinning her for a kiss.

Oh.

Her arms wrapped around his neck, and she pushed up into the kiss, her body rubbing against Alt all the way. Caid moved up behind her, hands sliding around her waist, and his heavy heat pressed against her, somehow far more aggressive than she expected. It made her moan, found her hips rocking back and forth between them, caught in a perfect position.

Find it here! And Amazon and ARE!

A few tips for authors who are going the self-publishing route

Hey y'all

Most of you know my alter ego, Lorna, is a publisher. I don't format the book files or create covers, but I do market, categorize, advertise, deal with distributors and write checks.

Today I was poking around the new releases on ARE and saw a couple of self-published books that had some great covers. So I clicked on one to see what it was about.

O.o

o.O

The blurb was very non-specific. The hero was mentioned, and he falls in love, but they never tell us with whom. (who? I hate who and whom)

So I looked for categories. Um. Nope. Romance general, uncategorized.

So, I thought, maybe tags. Nope. Nada.

Okay, so the second book seems to indicate that these are m/f, right? Maybe. The love interest's name is unisex. Mainly girls, but who knows?

Y'all, can I share something I've learned in 15 years of romance work and 20 of library circ work? People want to know what they're getting. That's why library cataloging was invented. To make it easy to find what people want, or need, to read. Tell me if it's m/f or m/m or menage. Tell me, since it's clearly dystopian in this case, if it's futuristic, or alt universe, or steampunk. Tell me if it's bdsm or vanilla. Hell, give me a flame rating! Fill out your whole meta data! I'm not even going to go read the sample if I have no idea if this is something I want to read.

I'll pass right by and go for a book with just as cool a cover that tells me, "You like what I'm about!"

Take the time, y'all. Tags are so important, and so are categories. Ponder them for a bit. You're not narrowing your readership, you're helping your readers find you.

Gotta say, they were neat covers, though!

XXOO

Julia

Georgia Knights- New release- or how I finally got this book done!

Georgia Knights is a mmf menage. I've been writing it, honestly, for years. For long enough that I had to go back in after beta and update some technology and such. Not kidding.

It took so long because I have a love hate relationship with menage. I love to write it, and read it if it's well done. A lot of my readers hate it, and are happy to tell me why. They don't want girl parts in their m/m. O.O Wide eyes. Okay. So, we're just gonna negate an entire gender. Or as Alton from Georgia Knights would say, why cut yourself off from half the people who could give you orgasms?

On the other side of the coin, I have people who tell me they like menage as long as the boys don't touch. Oh, my boys touch. They touch a lot. Have you met a man? If he's gonna do a threesome with another man, there will most likely be touching. Lalala.

So, I got discouraged. I put this one aside. I debated writing more menage for TQ, where my audience is mostly m/m readers. But darn it, I like putting the B in GLBTQ. So I pulled that sucker out and finished it.

The re-write process was fascinating on this one. I haven't pulled out such an old WIP in a long time, because I usually don't have time. Writing to deadline means new ideas that are flowing fast and furious, not a slow reworking of an old theme. The whole process was akin to visiting with my 39 year old self. (I am 44 now, do you can do math on how long I let this one sit). All of my old bad habits were there, but so was some of my former writing innocence, some of the lost oomph, if you will, where I made up new phrases and silliness just for the sheer joy of it.

I love this book, and am so proud I finally buckled down and got it out. Half of a writer's struggle is overcoming our nerves at how an audience will receive our work.

The other have is just that we have to be nuts to want to do this for a living.

Here;s the lovely cover

Here's were to get it

Here's the blurby

When anthropologist Georgia Cortez heads to rural Georgia from New Mexico, she’s on the trail of a juicy old legend. Haley Falls seems like just the place for old-time ghost stories and spooky hauntings, but she’s on the hunt for something far rarer, a survival of an old sect of medieval knights.

Caid and Alton are Haley Fall natives, and they used to be best friends. A falling out years ago ended in them not speaking, even after Alt left town and returned older, if not wiser. They unite when it comes to a nosy scholar like Georgia picking apart their heritage, and putting their whole town in danger. When boys meet girl, though, they decide wooing is far better than scaring the lady off, and they set about distracting Georgia in the best way.

While their three way romance heats up, so does the intrigue in Haley Falls, until the three of them are facing a danger far worse than falling in love with each other.