Delightful me

July Update: Wait, What Month Is it?

By in Delightful me, Life, My Books, My delightful family, News, The writing life

Summer is flying by! I can’t believe it’s already the last day of July. Here’s what’s happened this month:

*My brother’s family moved halfway across the country, and we road-tripped to help them unpack.

*I enrolled Little Miss R for middle school (sob!).

*She had 2340983409 playdates with friends while I continued revising His Wayward Bride based on 9 sets of feedback (only one of those numbers is an exaggeration).

*I joined historical fiction author Julia Kelly and her sister Justine for a very fun episode of their book-recommendation podcast, You’re Never Going to Read This.

There’s just a smidge left of summer for us, and I’m planning to spend it offline. Little Miss R will be starting at a new school, and we’ve got a lot to do to get ready for the year. I’m also working on finishing His Wayward Bride for an October release, and I’d like to get The Sport of Baronets ready for reissue in September.

So, I’ll see you after Labor Day! Hope all is well with you, and that your summer–or winter, if you’re in the southern half of our beautiful world–has been a happy season with many great books.

May Update: Summer, New Releases, and That One Print Edition

By in Author interviews, Delightful me, Guest post, Life, My Books, My delightful family, News, The writing life

It’s summer! At least, it is according to the school calendar here. Little Miss R has finished elementary school (!!) and begun her summer break, so I’m in a scramble of day camps and playdates as I work toward my next deadline. (It’s for His Wayward Bride, and I should be able to share more info soon.)

This month marked the release of A Novella Collection, which pulls together four stand-alone novellas at a discounted ebook price. I’ve just reviewed and approved the final proof for the print edition, so I’d expect that to go live early next week. The print edition is going to be a lovely trade paperback–I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy.

I’ve also just received the ebook edition of How to Ruin a Duke, beautifully formatted by writing partner Grace Burrowes. For this title, the print edition will go up first–maybe even early next week! Then the ebook will come out on the official release day, which is June 11.

For self-published works–which this is–it’s not possible to put up a print edition for pre-order. It’s available for purchase as soon as the link goes live. So that’s why I don’t have a print link for you yet, but as soon as I do, you’ll be able to order the print edition.

Yesterday I recorded a podcast with author Julia Kelly and her sister Justine, the co-hosts of You’re Never Going to Read This. Every episode is warm, fun, and a little cheeky. I heartily encourage you to get caught up! My episode with the sisters will air sometime in June, perhaps around the middle of the month. We talked about everything from my new releases to the book club I’ve accidentally founded within my family, and there are LOTS of book recommendations.

And finally, my Facebook readers’ group enjoyed a book club discussion of Lisa Kleypas’s Devil’s Daughter earlier this month. The book club is a quarterly affair, but I’ll be offline in August (see above re: summer and the child care struggle). So the group voted to wait on the next book club until November rather than cramming in another discussion ASAP. Apart from our formal quarterly book club, we share weekly what-are-you-reading recommendation posts, and I post giveaways and sneak peeks at what I’m working on. If you haven’t yet joined the group, I’d love to see you there!

April Update: Surgery, Yet More Travel, and Book News

By in Delightful me, Life, My Books, My delightful family, News, Novella, Romance of the Turf

Look at me, squeaking in the April update under the wire! It’s still April for a whopping 13-ish hours, as of this posting, and the reason I’m posting so late in the month is because of what a crowded month it was.

I began the month with a long-needed outpatient surgery; nothing major, but it kicked my energy to the curb for a while as I recovered. I’m still not back to 100%, but I have the hope of being more than 100% (at least, what my 100% has been for a while) in the long term. We shall see.

Last week, my mom and I drove to Louisiana—about 800 miles—to visit my grandmother and other relatives in the area. We’d been planning to wait until the end of the school year, which is another month away, but one of my aunts had cancer surgery in mid-April and we thought she might need a hand. I did help her with an organization project (and play with her adorable parrots), but she’s actually doing really well! What good news.

And my grandmother, at age 92, has bounced back from a number of health issues and is currently doing well too. She’s sharp enough to complete destroy my mom and me at progressive rummy—which is pretty much a family tradition, because she has ALWAYS completely destroyed EVERYONE at progressive rummy. “Just lucky,” she excuses. Hmm. Funny how the same person is always lucky. 😉

I brought a virus home with me and am currently sore-throated and scratchy-voiced. But! My typing fingers are doing fine, and I have lots of fun book news to share.

First of all, four of my backlist novellas are being bundled into a box set—so if you’d like to collect them all, you can get them much more cheaply than buying each one individually. This bundle is creatively called A Novella Collection, and the cover is quite lovely, don’t you think?

Soon after that, How to Ruin a Duke will be published! This novella duo by Grace Burrowes and me tells two linked stories about a scandalous novel and its impact on a couple in trade (that’s my story—the heroine builds stringed instruments) and the unfortunate ducal subject of the novel (that’s Grace’s story—which I absolutely love, and I think you all will too).

And finally, Shana Galen and I are running the first-ever sale on our duo, Mrs. Brodie’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies. For just one more day, you can get the ebook for 99 cents, down from its regular price of $3.99.

Our Mrs. Brodie stories can stand on their own, but we also had fun connecting them to other books. My novella, “The Way to a Gentleman’s Heart,” features a cook heroine and a second chance with her first love, and it introduces some characters who will play a big part in His Wayward Bride–the last Romance of the Turf book, out this fall.

And…that’s it for April. Whew! What has this month been like for you?

February Update: Books and Travel

By in Delightful me, Life, My Books, Roguish Runners, Royal Reward, The writing life, WIN

Well, it’s official: winter has arrived. The calendar said it was here in December, but only in February have we had the kind of chilling, biting cold that calls for hot chocolate and school cancellations. Little Miss R recently had a day off school due to wind-chill temperatures. (My sister’s family lives further north and has had SIX off this year. As in, 2019.)

Working from home as I do erodes the boundaries between “at work” and “away from work,” so when Little Miss R has an unpexpected day off, I feel pressure to get just as much done as ever. But she wants to play! She’s far too extroverted to settle with a stack of books all day. We compromised on some playtime, then some worktime for me while she snitched a device and FaceTimed with her friends (the modern equivalent of stretching the phone cord from the kitchen down the hallway, as I did so many times).

Speaking of work…one change since last month’s update is that I’ve regretfully bowed out of one of the planned novella projects for this year. I hated to do it, because I knew I’d love working with the other authors. I felt like I was letting them down, and myself too.

But I’m trying to be more realistic about what I can do, given the limitations of my energy. I need to think about what I can get done, not what I want to get done or what I think I should get done. It’s an ongoing process of reality checks and realizations. Perhaps I’ll get there one day.

Anyway, you’ll still be getting a new story from me in June and again later on in the fall—maybe October. And before then, of course, is the release of Lady Notorious on 2-26. I’ll be around the Internet in a few places to share excerpts and giveaways, including Limecello’s blog, The Drawing Room Facebook group, and Vanessa Kelly’s Clan Kendrick Facebook group. If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, I’ll always post the latest hops and stops there.

Looking ahead to March, I’ll be going twice to North Carolina. The first trip is purely to be with family, to attend my littlest niece’s baptism. The second time I go, I’ll be presenting for Duke as part of the “Unsuitable” series examining the role of women in popular culture and fiction. I believe these events are open to the public, so if you happen to be in the Raleigh-Durham area on March 22, I’d love to see you! More info here: https://sites.duke.edu/unsuitable/events/

And now, I have a giveaway to offer. As I looked through my stash of author copies, I realized I have one print advance copy of Lady Notorious without a home. I’d love to get it into a reader’s hands before publication day on the 26th!

If you’d like that reader to be you, just leave a comment on this post. In accordance with the site privacy policy, please note that your email address will be stored, but it will never be shared, and the only reason it will ever be used is for me to contact you if you win. 🙂 I’ll choose the winner at random from among all comments left by Monday, February 18, at noon ET and will leave a comment myself to name the winner. International entries are most welcome. What other fine print should I add? Void where prohibited, must be 18 or over, must love books…all right, I’ll leave it in your hands now.

Thanks for reading, gang. There would be no books without you, so you’re all my Valentines.

January Update: New Year, New News

By in Delightful me, Life, My Books, News, Royal Reward, The writing life, Website

Or maybe it makes more sense to say “New year, new approach”? I hadn’t realized how much time had slipped by since I updated my blog, but it’s been six months, which is not too good. Especially since I released a book during those six months. My deepest apologies to Mrs. Brodie’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies.

What happened over the last six months? Well, I’ve been triaging. I have chronic health issues that limit my time and energy. Unfortunately, over the last year, the problems have gotten more severe. If I only have the ability to update one site, I’ve chosen to post news on Facebook (I now have a readers’ group as well as an author page) rather than here on the blog. It’s easier to interact with readers on Facebook. Talking with readers, to put it in Marie Kondo terms, sparks a lot of joy for me.

But I do want my website to be the ultimate source for news on my books, which means I need to do more with it. Which also means I have to be smarter about how I work, since I’m unable to work more.

I’m trying out some methods to help me be more mindful of how I spend time. Tracking my reading. Chunking projects rather than working for tiny pieces of time. Getting help with graphics. Creating more detailed plans for my works-in-progress.

In a lot of ways, I suspect the year itself will be a work in progress.

Regardless, I’ll keep you all posted, and in several different ways:

  • For of-the-moment news like sales, follow me on social media. I’m mainly on Facebook and Twitter, though I do hop over to Pinterest to make boards for each of my books. And if you follow me on BookBub, you’ll get alerted to sales and new releases, as well as recommendations of books I’ve loved.
  • For big news like new releases or a whole flock of sales all at once, be sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter. Subscribers get exclusive excerpts, trivia, and giveaways. Just sayin’. 🙂
  • And here on my blog, I’ll post about bigger picture stuff. What’s in the works, whether any plans are changing, all that good stuff. I don’t want to overcommit, so let’s say once a month. How’s that?

Ta da! That’s the goal and a plan. And here’s the big picture news as of today.

My final Royal Rewards novel–Lady Notorious—is coming out next month, on February 26. This is the love story of Cass and George, both of whom appeared in the previous book in the series, Lady Rogue. I’m very happy with how their story turned out; they strike sparks on the page as they solve a murder mystery and fall in love.

But since I’m being frank, I’ll admit: I’ve never had a harder time writing a book. I didn’t feel well the whole time I worked on it, and I had to ask my saintly editor for an extension on the deadline. (She really is a saint, and I love her, and I hope her fondness for Lady Notorious means readers will love it too.)

It’s become clear to me that I can’t keep working at the pace I was attempting, but I’m not sure what that will mean going forward. For 2019, you might not notice any difference at all! I have two novella projects lined up for this year–a duo with the wonderful Grace Burrowes in June and an anthology in October with some of my other dear writer friends. In late spring, I might be putting out a box set of previously published novellas, to give you all a chance to grab these stories at a discount.

Another project, His Wayward Bride, is taking a while as I began a major rewrite at the end of last year. The new direction is working well, but I don’t want to promise a specific release date yet. It’ll be this year, I’m 99% sure…but saying 100% seems like tempting fate!

So, that’s what’s up with me. How are things with you?

Me on a Podcast and Other Cool Things That Happened Recently

By in Delightful me, Guest post, I am a dork, My Scandalous Duke, News, Royal Reward

Hey, dear readers! I’ve got all kinds of updates for you. That’s one of the good things (maybe the only good thing) about being a lazy blogger: when I finally do post, the post is AFLAME WITH OPPORTUNITY.

First of all–I have a book out tomorrow! Passion Favors the Bold is the second historical romance in the Royal Rewards series. If you read book 1, Fortune Favors the Wicked, you met Hugo and Georgette. Now their love story is told! It’s a sassy but heartfelt best friend’s little sister romance. Night Owl Reviews and RT Book Reviews have each given Passion Favors the Bold a Top Pick review. I hope you’ll like it too.

In other recent news that is lovely and fun, I was invited to join Sarah Wendell for the weekly Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. You can find it through iTunes (it’s episode 231) or just listen on the Smart Bitches website. Voila! Sarah even thoughtfully included a picture of me in my Reading Rainbow shirt. Be inspired, y’all.

Sarah also hosts a semiweekly live stream on YouTube, and on February 18, she read the first chapter of Passion Favors the Bold on air. It was very cool to hear her take on the characters. (Thank you, Sarah!) The whole live-stream episode is here; if you want to hop straight to the romance-reading part, it starts at about 32 minutes in.

Thanks, gang! Hope you enjoyed all the news. If you want to be sure to stay posted, sign up for my newsletter. The easiest place is right on the Home page.