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No snark. Bad puppy. No. (Review stuff.)

A two star Amazon review on His American Detective: "Bodice ripper about gay men by a woman." and I'm longing to comment "don't you mean a waistcoat ripper?" God, no. Stop me. The reviews rarely rattle me any longer -- except when I spot a truth in a bad one. When that happens, I actually lose sleep. This means I still care about writing.  Speaking of reviewers and writers: A couple of days ago, a writer said she was tired of getting white ladies writing reviews of her books. She had an excellent point in the long run: her stories are meant for a particular audience and she wants them to resonate with those people and get more reviews from them.  But that first line was just....horribly obnoxious. I say this from my POV of course. Not a white lady who writes reviews -- but as a review grubber.   Anyone who disses any reader (especially ones that give honest reviews) deserves to be cast into the pit of being ignored.  

A new book out today!

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His Irish Detective is now on sale!  Buy it at Amazon.  Buy it at Kobo.  Buy it at Barnes and Noble  Colm Kelly, a popular constable, is happy to be a big fish in his little pond of an Irish village—until his secret sin is revealed by his best friend. Overnight, his happy life is ruined. He loses his job, and even his family, and flees to England. Colm might get another chance in London as an inquiry agent. His first job: watch the honorable Q.R. Marrill, the next heir apparent to a fortune, who lives under a cloud of family deaths. It’s unclear if Marrill is the perpetrator or the next victim of a killer who has struck before. Colm must discover the truth, and the best way to do that is to act as the man’s valet, a menial job Colm is ill-suited for. Worse, the young gentleman is nothing like Colm’s image of an aristocrat and more like his idea of perfection. He has no desire to ruin his life again with unwelcome passion. The bookish Quade Marrill, fourth son of a wealthy

My book is a BookBub special today!

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You can get a full-length award winning historical romance by me! It's featured on BookBub Another upside to this sale? You buy the Kindle copy and pick up a discounted audio version too -- both for less than $4. This was my first published title, put out by Kensington. It's still one of my favorites, in part because I really love Mick, the cop hero. When I wrote it, alpha heroes were the way to go. My editor took a chance on a what she called out-of-the-norm sort of hero: a guy who isn't rich or pushy. I also had a great time doing research about the corrupt New York City police department for this book. Turns out I had too much fun -- I had to take out pages and pages of  Gangs of New York non-romance sort of content. I wrote Intrepid Heroine Who Gets into Trouble Timona soon after watching a few episodes of  the Perils of Pauline-- the real ones made in 1914. It shows. Somebody Wonderful  will be 99 cents until 2/17/18  here's the link at Barnes and Nobl

My Writing Day with an Unproductive Brain

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My coworkers hear it all the time  and are profoundly uninterested me:  Okay, this isn't going to work. I have these characters drinking tea again. They need to do something else immediately. These words are chopped. Two hundred gone. And let's see, the confrontation is coming up soon. Any suggestions? also me:   Oh. My. God. Why bother? No one reads your books. No one thinks they're anything more than adequate. You can't seem to change your style to fit what people want. You're old news. OLD. NEWS. Stale old voice. There's no point in writing yet another book that no one will wants-- me: How about if they finally talk instead of just hinting around? Yeah, and maybe that guy will say what's been on his mind since chapter two. also me: Jesus. So boring. Talk, talk, talk. You know that your-- me: How about if they-- also me: --you know your books are worthless because people want conflict and angst. They don't want to read another book wit

Return to routine

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I just noticed that Lois McMaster Bujold likes Ben Aaronovitch too.  I saw that mention on her blog which shows up on her Amazon page.  Which reminded me of my own blog and .... maybe this will show up on my Amazon page? If it does, and you've clicked on the link, hello! Here it is, my new cover for a new novella -- the first new book in a while, actually. Have you missed my writing? Whoops, never mind, not going to rub a toe in the dirt and peek over at you to see if I get some pats on the head. I've missed it and that's going to get me cranking again This was inspired by Bonnie Dee who wrote to me and said, hey, want to write a story about dogs and guys?  Yes please. Yes. A nice break from reality and, hoo boy, I have missed routine and fun stories. Thank you, Bonnie. I'm going to include an excerpt to her book at the back of mine. Hers will show up May 20, I think. HOT UNDER THE COLLAR will be out in May too -- probably May 15.

fading away...but 2 glasses of wine make it ok