Due to circumstances beyond my control...

The Kindle Countdown for THE GREY LADY is not on, not going to happen, kicked to the curb.

There is a lesson here--yet another lesson for today's writer. Take notes. There will be a test.

1) The Grey Lady was originally published by McArthur and Co. All rights reversed. Every effort made to have electronic versions removed from all retailers.

2) Author enrolls The Grey Lady in KDP Select to take advantage of wonderful promotional tool of Countdown.

3) Author receives an email from KDP Select team saying terms of Select are being violated as The Grey Lady is for sale at iTunes.

4) Author hustles over. Yes, indeedy, there it is--the old edition of The Grey Lady is still being sold although author had no knowledge of it and has not received a single penny. Responds to KDP that book will be removed pronto. Emails iTunes legal to have book removed. Book is removed. Emails KDP team the good news.

5) Author checks KDP bookshelf and sees The Grey Lady is no longer in Select and therefore not eligible for Countdown. 

Crack open Joseph Heller's "Catch 22" and give it another read. Feel blood pressure return to normal.  

Screw it. Author determines will reduce price of The Grey Lady just because she can. 

I see a Kindle Countdown Deal in your future....

THE GREY LADY is going rogue. To celebrate the Civic Holiday she's throwing herself out there for .99 on July 31. Her price goes up a buck a day thereafter until August 6. 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K33AASG 

 A mystery, a puzzle, a psychological suspense novel. One dead man. Eight suspects. A driving rainstorm. Secrets, lies, scandal and hidden hate.

"As with any good mystery, virtually everyone has something to hide ... tightly written and perfectly paced, we feel we are being swept along by the story like a fallen branch in a fast-flowing river of spring runoff." Montreal Review of Books

New book on the way! New book on the way!

That sound you hear is me shrieking for joy. My third book in the Gatineau Hills Mystery series is due for release on July 24, 2014.

THE RIVER BRIDE is the story of reporter, Alvina Moon (who was given a brief nod in THE GREY LADY) and her doomed investigation into a seven-year-old murder.

From the back jacket:

      Marlee Bremer claims her husband is a sexual deviant. Convicted rapist and murderer, Trey Bremer insists it was only a game. 
     Seven years ago, the family's au pair was found brutally slain in the Bremer's abandoned trailer near the river. Tried and convicted for the girl's murder, Trey Bremer has always asserted his innocence. 
     The truth of what really happened to Teresa Musgrave begins to unravel when an anonymous note arrives at the Stollerton Record. On the hunt for the big story that could save her career, Alvina Moon is caught up in a disturbing crime and the victim's beautiful, troubled artist husband.

This is a sneak peek at the cover. The book will be available for pre-order at Kobo and Amazon for Kindles and available in print at CreateSpace and Amazon. 

Dang, it feels good to get a this two-year-old out the door. Get out and earn a living already!

You're So Vain, You Probably Think This Book is About You

Dear Disgruntled Former Friends of Novelists Until You Were Betrayed,

Our book is not about you. You are not featured as a character. We didn't write about you now and we are not likely to write about you in the future. This isn't because you aren't interesting. You are!  It's the nature of writing itself that prevents a novelist from taking hold of a character (even a real life character such as yourself) and forcing that person to live inside a fiction. The fiction always wins in the end. Characters take on traits common to all human beings. Even the writer takes second place to the demands of the story which is universal or there is no point in writing it.

So take a deep breath and trust me on this. Just because you know (or did know) a novelist, it doesn't mean a thing. You are you, and a fictional character is fictional. Not real. Or as I like to think, people in novels are a reality we haven't experienced yet but are chasing after. We don't know why they attract or repel us but they do and such is the power of fiction. 

We didn't write about you. Or anyone else in Creation. We wrote about all of us. 

Sincerely,

Novelists Everywhere