Coming Soon

Rachael's Return, the third book of the First Family series has made it to the "Coming Soon" page of New Concepts Publishing. There's no artwork yet and no indication of when, but it's good to see movement.

Feodar's World, the second book received a mixed review at Romance Reader at Heart. The reviewer, Julie, chose it because she'd read Mitchell's Valley and loved it enough to want to read what she thought was my first sci-fi story. It is neither my first, nor is it predominantly sci-fi, although the setting is a space ship initially.

I always knew making each book of the series stand alone was going to be difficult because the concept of a world created by a dying veteran of WWI, the French Foreign Legion, WWII and Korea where he and the family he creates there, become telepathic immortals with the ability to translocate physically is not quickly explainable and the plot is complex.

Julie found it confusing from page one, but she was generous enough to recommend it to anyone who'd already read New Blood.

Whiskey Creek Press are still releasing The Widowmaker in May 2008 and Shadowrose publications are anxious to release A Fair Trader soon and are looking at the other books of my backlist.

My work in progress has gone through a couple of name changes as the story develops, but seems to have settled down to The Countess and the Pirates. It's going well and I hope to have the first three chapters to accompany a query letter soon.

"The best I've written so far."

I'm deep in the initial chapters of a new series about pirates and the women who love them. It opens with the Treaty of Amiens in 1802 and the heroine is returning to Jamaica after her first season in London. The temporary peace with Napoleon has thrown a flock of privateers out of employment and they have reverted to piracy, etc.

The story's going great guns and I'm enjoying the writing so much, I made the above comment at breakfast, only to have my partner smile knowingly and remind me that I say this with every new book I begin.

Stephen King, in his very readable book, "On Writing", admits to the same feeling, so I'm in good company.

Its a great life.

Amy

Wordsmith

When I first started writing professionally I came across "wordsmith". It wasn't familiar so I looked it up in the dictionary.

Wordsmith: a fluent and prolific writer with a talent for words; a professional whose vocation is writing; a journalist.

It gave me a goal. More than anything else, I wanted to be a wordsmith!

Yesterday, an editor who knew nothing of me beyond my manuscripts described me as a 'Wordsmith" and, influenza virus or no, I felt good. It was, to me, the ultimate professional accolade.

As an aside, it seems Shadowrose Publications may release my early books taken off the shelf by the demise of Rocky River Romances, starting with A Fair Trader, the Americanized version of A Fair Trade. I've done the artwork questionnaire and am waiting for the edits.

More later.

Amy