Here Be News

New Releases

PETS IN SPACE releases tomorrow, October 11th! Veronica Scott and Pauline Baird Jones developed the concept, and Veronica's story in the volume is "Star Cruise: Stowaway."

Here's the blurb and buy links (Amazon won't be live until release day - sorry!)

The blurb for Pets In Space:

Even an alien needs a pet...

Join the adventure as nine pet loving sci-fi romance authors take you out of this world and pull you into their action-packed stories filled with suspense, laughter, and romance. The alien pets have an agenda that will capture the hearts of those they touch. Follow along as they work side by side to help stop a genetically-engineered creature from destroying the Earth to finding a lost dragon; life is never the same after their pets decide to get involved. Can the animals win the day or will the stars shine just a little less brightly?

New York Times, USA TODAY, Award Winning, and Best selling authors have eight original, never-released stories and one expanded story giving readers eight amazing new adventures  and one expanded story that will capture your imagination and help a worthy charity. Come join us as we take you on nine amazing adventures that will change the way you look at your pet!

10% of the first month’s profits go to Hero-Dogs.org. Hero Dogs raises and trains service dogs and places them free of charge with US Veterans to improve quality of life and restore independence.

And the blurb for Star Cruise: Stowaway:

Cargo Master Owen Embersson is shocked when the Nebula Zephyr’s ship’s cat and her alien sidekick, Midorri, alert him to the presence of a stowaway. He has no idea of the dangerous complications to come – nor does he anticipate falling hard for the woman whose life he now holds in his hands. Life aboard the Nebula Zephyr has just become more interesting – and deadly.

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/pets-in-space/id1160010182…
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Pets-Space-Other-Worldly-Creatures-ebook/dp/B01MF55D96/ 

ARe: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-petsinspace-212756…

GooglePlay: https://play.google.com/…/…/details/S_E_Smith_Pets_in_Space…

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/pets-in-space

Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pets-in-space-p…/1124712730…

TEETH, LONG AND SHARP is out!

IVORIES by Aria M. Jones - Eleanor resents the afternoons sacrificed to piano lessons and a disagreeable teacher who gloats over her failures and humiliations. Today, it’s Mrs. Lundemann’s turn for a sacrifice of a very different nature…

NIGHT TIDE by Grace Draven - Something hunts the surf at night, luring villagers to their deaths with a lullaby of sorrow and the torture of nightmares. Blessed with the gift of water-sight, Zigana Imre senses the presence of an ancient predator possessing a taste for human flesh sweetened by grief. With the help of a child of earth, she will battle a spawn of the sea to protect a loved one and save a man who will one day save a world. 

THE NOISE OF FUR by Jeffe Kennedy - The first time, it came at night…

In the forest, a Thing prowls, picking off members of young Raven’s tribe. If they flee their home, they face starvation. If only Raven can answer the question of what kind of fur makes that noise.

VENETRIX by Antioch Grey - A merchant and a poet come to the City, seeking justice for the murder of a relative, and if justice cannot be found, they will have revenge. They collude with vampires, negotiate with mermaids, share ale and meat pies with gargoyles and navigate the prisons, waterways and court system of a city ruled by a Master possessing long life and even longer teeth.

The City will make you a fortune, or it will kill you, but it will always change you.

THE VAMPIRES OF MULBERRY STREET by Aria M. Jones - Living the simple life in small town Indiana, Mrs. H has everything she could possibly ever want: a cozy house, peace and quiet, and a garden that is the envy of Mulberry Street. But when sinister outsiders disrupt the tranquility of her neighborhood, it might be time for her to come out of retirement and take up tools more deadly than pruning shears and a trowel.

VOICE OF THE KNIFE by Mel Sterling - Biologist Charles Napier doesn’t mind getting lost in a Florida swamp—it’s part of a scientist’s job. Logic and training will get him out safely. Except lurking in this swamp, there’s a monster Napier’s science can’t explain...a lonely, exquisite, desperate monster.

Amazon/Kindle:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M10ZVGD

iBooks:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/teeth-long-and-sharp/id1162465057

Nook:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/teeth-long-and-sharp-grace-draven/1124762309?ean=2940153511368

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/teeth-long-and-sharp

The Noise of Fur - Exclusive Excerpt

Very excited for the upcoming release of this anthology, TEETH, LONG AND SHARP.

The savvy Grace Draven, lover of all things dark and fantastic, had the idea for this title and invited the other four of us to write her a story with only that as the prompt. I've started reading the other stories and they're all spine-chillingly awesome.

My story is the shortest in the group - because that's how it worked out. I had so many ideas that would fit Grace's title, but none "felt" right. Finally, in rooting through my spreadsheet of Story Ideas (you knew, I had one, yes?), I found this title I'd noted down a year or two ago: THE NOISE OF FUR.

It came from riffing on Twitter, but I couldn't remember more than that. It was funny at the time.

The way it struck me at that moment, combined with Grace's title, TEETH, LONG AND SHARP, took me in a so not-at-all-funny direction.

I started writing the story, with only those two phrases in mind ... and discovered it as I went. That's the purest, most fun (and agonizing) writing there is for me. What came out is super cool, though.

Look for the anthology coming out October 6!

And now... a little glimpse of THE NOISE OF FUR.

****************

She entered the old forest, moving from tree to tree, making little sound herself. There was an art to it. A skill that went beyond knowing where the leaves would crackle or how the bark of that branch had dried enough to crack. Her mother had taught her that being stealthy was about becoming, being so much a part of the woods—or the meadow, or the creek, or the great tumble of rocks that led to the hills—that she made no more sound than the quiet groans of creaking branches or the soughing of thunder wind in the canopy.

She belonged and the Thing did not. One reason it always made noise. And why she made sure not to.

She froze again at the grating crawl of movement, letting herself become one of the tree shadows. Silent and still always trumped silent and moving. Though it took both training and crushing will to make herself stay instead of fleeing as her baser instincts begged her to. She could escape easily, slipping through the trees like a dapple of sunlight, disappearing into the dark and warm spaces between. Her blood sang with the demand, heart hammering away with readiness, lungs straining to billow.

But she held them still.

Still.

Silent.

If she fled, she’d never see it, and her curiosity burned.

The noise scraped as nothing should, like down, but nothing to do with feathers. Just beyond that grove before the big boulder. Sifting out in mutters of menace, like crystal rocks screeching on flint, the sound rounded from both sides, not nearer on one more than the other, extending in butterfly wings of equal expansion. Tense with expectation, she poised for a glimpse.

The Thing sounded louder, soft and hot.

A growl of noise. A flurry of movement, punctuated by a rising garbled shriek... then gone.

*********************************

Coming Soon!!!

Amazon/Kindle:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M10ZVGD

iBooks:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/teeth-long-and-sharp/id1162465057

Nook:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/teeth-long-and-sharp-grace-draven/1124762309?ean=2940153511368

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/teeth-long-and-sharp

Gang A-Gley Giveaway!

What happens when you just can't meet a writing goal or deadline?

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft a-gley.

~Robert Burns

So...

I'd asked for this date on the illustrious Here Be Magic calendar - governed by the menacing and truly frightening Calendarzilla - because I'd planned to have book three in my Sorcerous Moons, fantasy romance series out around now. 

Like yesterday, even. 

Instead, I finished writing it the day before yesterday. This isn't the first time I've had to adjust a deadline, but it feels like the most egregious slip. When I had to push back a deadline by a month once before - also (not coincidentally) for the third book in a trilogy - it was for my publisher, who'd built in months of buffer to the production schedule. I knew it; my editor knew it (and was cool with it); otherwise it didn't show.

This time it shows and I feel sheepish about it. Maybe that's not a strong enough word.

See, I figured back in mid-August that I simply wouldn't be able to write this book in time. Part of it was tying up the story. The rest was... well, all those mice and men!  I started off great - I wrote more than 18,000 words the first week, at the end of July. Good words, too. They survived mostly intact to the draft I just completed. 

Then I had a couple of weeks of totally unproductive shite. I could go into all the things that did happen instead, but I'm pretty clear with myself that I make the writing a priority, regardless of what else happens. 

And, really, what happened is the dominoes that started falling back in February caught up and smashed down. It wasn't that I didn't make the time. I just couldn't produce the words.

For the first time, I believed that burn-out might be a real thing.

I hauled back, shed a few tears, spent a few days staring at the sky, and pushed back my own personal production deadline.

TA DAHHHH!!!

Pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain.

At any rate - the big ratchet-back helped. I finished a story I owed Grace Draven for TEETH, LONG AND SHARP, which turned out pretty damn cool after all.

And I finally finished THE TIDES OF BARA. More: I'm happy with it. Just wait until you see the freaking cover for that! It's coming out October 29, so stay tuned for that.

In the meanwhile, I'm offering a giveaway of the first two Sorcerous Moons books. Comment here and tell me about a plan gone wrong, and I'll give a commenter those two novels in the digital format of their choice. Open to international!

Here Be News

Cover Reveals! 

Jeffe Kennedy's totally new, standalone story, THE NOISE OF FUR, will appear in the TEETH, LONG AND SHARP anthology. Coming out in October, here's the sexy new cover!

Emergency Cupid by R.L. Naquin

A Dallas Fire & Rescue Kindle Worlds Exclusive coming October 13!

When someone sets off a homemade love bomb in the middle of a Dallas fire station, Ellen is the obvious choice to clean it up. After all, she’s the number one Cupid in the department.

Wild love magic is everywhere, creating bad matches and causing chaos wherever Ellen turns. But Chaos itself has an interest in the situation and sends an agent from its own department to show Ellen there’s more than one way to approach a problem.

Ellen expects to take advantage of the variety of sexy, single emergency responders to add to her already impressive record of love matches. But nothing is going right, and her record may not be what she thought it was. People aren’t statistics. Love is more than finished paperwork. And maybe she needs to think about a happily ever after of her own before she can help others find theirs.