Gallery Page for 'The Perfect Rochester' Now Up

As the post title says, y'all. I finally got it together and did the gallery page for The Perfect Rochester, and since I'm still not quite 100% myself yet, I hope like hell the stuff makes sense. I was also able to get the print book set up, so that should go live soon enough. We now have less than one month before the book's grand entrance.

Progress on Compline has improved a lot ever since I decided to work extra chapters into the book. It helped me revise that problematic chapter I whined incessantly about, and now things are where they should be. Only minor tweaks are needed for the rest of the initial chapters I wrote, and I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Suffice it to say, they're nowhere near as troublesome as the one I just reworked.

I'm going to be hitting the 30K-word mark this coming weekend, and things will pick up speed once that line's crossed. Wow. It's almost mind-blowing that I'm so close to the homestretch. And to think I almost shelved this book three times. A big old emphatic "Phew!" to that.

As a bit of an aside, I'd like to address the year-long book sales I'm having for my backlist. I'm doing that to help folks get copies of my books at more affordable prices. Granted, my set prices for my e-books and print books are by design, and they're meant to be the most affordable for books written by an obscure author who specializes in a relatively small niche (gothic horror and ghost fiction + a hint of gay romance).

However, given current economic uncertainties, I'm not about to strong arm anyone into shelling out money for my books. 

So the other option I encourage readers to take advantage of is Hoopla. All you need is a library card if you live in the US, and you can borrow my books through that program. It's free to readers, and writers still get a small royalty per book checked out. It's a win-win for everyone, and all but The Book of Lost Princes are listed. The cover art for most of the older books aren't the more current ones, but the contents are the same.

So if you're interested in checking out my stuff but would like to save some money, go here for my author page.

February Backlist Bonanza: 'Guardian Angel' and 'Dollhouse'

I was way off my center all of January (bad cold and a crazier than usual workload at the day job), so I barely managed a couple (three?) posts on the books I had on offer for my monthly Backlist Bonanza sale. I hope to do better this month though it looks like the day job's set to be just as nutty as last month. A shocking development, yeah, but also good in the sense of steady work in the face of a shitshow of a GOP administration (and I use "administration" in its loosest sense). 

So for February, two new books are 50% off:

GUARDIAN ANGEL

When nineteen-year-old Dominic Coville's parents die in an accident, leaving him not only alone but on the brink of poverty, he desperately searches for work and is thrilled when the post of secretary is awarded to him despite his obvious inexperience and ignorance. Mr. Wynyard Knight of Mandrake Abbey, however, gladly welcomes Dominic and earns the young man's immediate sympathy for his fragile health as well as gratitude for the promising new life now awaiting Dominic. 

Inside rock and timber, hungry shadows seek... 

But unusual things soon happen and appear to focus solely on him, and Dominic begins to wonder about the true history of Mr. Knight, the strange young man haunting the third floor, and Mandrake Abbey. With the persistent and increasingly violent attempts at communication by an angry ghost shadowing his hours, Dominic struggles to unravel the mysteries of his new home. And even with the help of a handsome young gentleman who's an aspiring supernaturalist as well as his clairvoyant sister, danger closes in far too quickly. 

Then it's only a matter of time before carefully constructed façades fall away, and the sickly, decaying underbelly of Mandrake Abbey's centuries-old collection of stone and timber will reveal itself. 

Set in an alternate England sometime before the mid-19th century, Guardian Angel weaves a tangled and dark tapestry of old magic, romance, and madness, a celebration of classic gothic fiction and its macabre sensibilities.

DOLLHOUSE

A bright future stretches out before Arthur Summerfield when he and his sister, Jane, are whisked off to the continent by Jane's fiancé. Catching the attention of a wealthy traveler ushers the pair into an exciting world filled with new friendships, young love, and a darkly magical land of misty mountains and mysterious guardian wolves.

While Arthur settles down into his new life in the town of St. Jude, Jane and Matus move into a centuries-old converted tower house fifty miles away. One that welcomes its new residents after decades of emptiness.

And centuries of loneliness.

The new residents stir the silent walkers of the house, their fates nothing more than cryptic entries in the journals of a long-dead mistress. As the house awakens, Arthur also draws the attention of Bohemia's guardian wolves, summoned to the town by their ancestor's calls.

Past and present come together in a chilling montage of centuries-old tragedies, an orphan's brush with the occult, and a young man who suddenly finds himself the focus of supernatural forces. Alone, armed with nothing but his wits, Arthur must venture into the deepening shadows of a haunted tower house to save the lives of those he loves most.

Guardian Angel is the first book under the Arcana Europa heading, and it's a collection of standalone novels that only share a universe, not an arc. Dollhouse is part of the Curiosities collection, which is also a collection of standalone novels sharing the same universe. Both e-books are half off through the end of February.

Romantic Gothic Boarding Schools

My cup of tea right there. RIGHT THERE. And tell you what -- in the course of searching for images I can use for this post, I stumbled across a couple of great ones that are inspiring me with more ideas for the next book on the calendar, and...

IT'S A BOARDING SCHOOL STORY. Wahoo!

Essentially the initial story idea I had for Compline, which would have taken place in a dark boarding school in Germany in the 19th century, has now trotted over to The Twilight Lover, whose notes are still pretty sparse enough for me to rework stuff. I was thinking at first of setting it in the present, but now things are in the air though it's still an option. I'll talk more about it when the time comes.

On that same note, I'd love to write a contemporary novella that's gothic horror without having to lean heavily on old houses and brooding settings, and maybe I'll be able to do that with the next book. The images I ran across very much have an Old World aesthetic, so I'll have to play around with ideas some more to see how I can make these elements come together. It'll be a ghost story, that's for sure. 

Anyway...

The primary setting for Wollstone is in a fantasy boarding school that's physically (and psychically?) isolated. The question of time and place is very murky on purpose as Emil's destined to come to terms with a past that's now haunting him in a trapped environment. As noted before, it was hugely inspired by Revolutionary Girl Utena as well as classic 1970s Boys Love manga like Kaze to Ki No Uta and Toma no Shinzou. 

I love the idea of boarding schools that are fantastical or are heavily influenced by fantasy and magic. The best, of course, would be boarding schools that are fantastical in the gothic horror sense. Wollstone Academy, in terms of the school's physical structure and the layout of the grounds (except for the strange wood that's part of the school environment), was based on my old school, which was a private Catholic girls' school. I just upped the romanticism by a bajillion percent and worked in some imagery from romanticized Chivalry. 

Wollstone is currently on sale for 50% through the end of January. 

Fun Times!

I've been sick, hence my radio silence over here. I've only had enough energy to check out the nightly chatter thread at Joe My God, and that's it. The last two weeks were rough, and while I'm much better now, I'm still putting up with residual coughing. I was supposed to post more about the two books currently on sale this month, but NOPE! That ship's gone, and all my energy levels and enthusiasm for it went with it.

But never say never. I'll rustle up a couple more posts about the books before the month's end since we'll be shifting gears with new books to put on sale for February.

My bout with a bad cold for two weeks also threw me off my game with my WiP, and again, I very nearly ditched the book and started over with a completely new one (The Twilight Lover). As I'm still not completely out of the woods yet, today's writing was sluggish but much less so than before. I'm also going back and inserting new chapters to fix the issues that've been messing with my head for a while now. It's working so far, but there'll be major tweaks I'll need to do with those chapters I've already written. As I type this post, we're at close to 50% of the book, which is terrific. 

Speaking of which, I'm once again reminded to get going on the gallery page for The Perfect Rochester, a book that keeps tempting me with an earlier release date. So far, as wonderful as it sounds, I refuse -- REFUSE, YOU HEAR ME? -- to cave in. Not today, Satan!

It's still on for March 1 even though I've been done with it for close to a quarter of a year now, and I hope to keep that gap up (even increase it slightly) for future books. And that's part of the reason why I'm not giving up on Compline and starting over either with this book or with another. There's no excuse in my case, anyway, since it's not even writer's block that's bogging down my progress. It's that mysterious wrench that's been jamming the spokes, and I have to keep analyzing what I've written down to see what's not working.

In other news, I've decided to buy Flow and own it outright as I love the movie so much it's worth paying for and watching several times over. I'm actually not a big film collector. I used to own a few VHS tapes and then a few DVDs, but over the years I didn't bother to replace my entertainment center when things broke down and ended up donating what I had.

Nowadays, with streaming services everywhere, I buy streaming movies, but I'm extremely picky about them. When before I used to have half a bookcase of tapes and DVDs, now I can count on one hand the movies I own on streaming. And Flow just made it because LOVE. 

Anyway, that's it for now. I figured I owe visitors to this site (those who aren't bots, that is) a quick update following nearly two weeks of silence. I hope to get back here tomorrow and talk some more about this month's Backlist Bonanza titles and might condense both books into one post. We'll see.

'The Winter Garden and Other Stories' and My Attempt at Allegory

This actually focuses on one specific story in the anthology: "Clouds' Illusions". It was by and large inspired by a short story that I fell in love with because it starts with one thing -- a pretty straightforward account -- and then shifts focus so subtly as you continue to read that the end completely throws you, and you're forced to either go back and reread or sit back and rethink what you've just read. And it's because the entire thing is actually an allegory of a person's life and how quickly time flies.

The story I refer to is Naguib Mahfouz's "Half a Day", which you can read in its entirety here. 

Now my take on an allegory is "Clouds' Illusions", whose title was also inspired by "Both Sides Now" (Joni Mitchell), which is all about innocence, perception, and harsh reality through time. For "Clouds' Illusions" (part of the song lyrics), the allegory takes place in a circus, where a child enters, experiences a lot of things (excitement, joy, loss, discovery, and maturity), and leaves as an adult. The rain is part of the allegory as well, and as tempting as it is to explain how, I'd rather have readers figure it all out.

Of course, growing up, the version I listened to the most was that by Judy Collins.

Here's a funny background bit about that specific story.

I originally submitted it to a gay fiction anthology years ago that was being put together by a small press. The editor in charge of the book accepted the story, and when the publisher reviewed the selections, he (the publisher) emailed me and asked what the story was all about because it didn't make sense. So I had to explain what it all meant to him, and he ended up rejecting the story. 

So I decided to add it to my own growing collection of gay-themed fairy tales that my then-publisher (another small press) first published individually before compiling the stories into one book. After I got my rights back, I republished the anthology as you now see it. 

The Winter Garden and Other Stories is currently on sale for $1.59 through the end of January.