Finished Reading “Slay” and a Book Event

I went to a book event in the Indianapolis area yesterday. Sold 7 books. Not enough to break even, but better than I expected. And a lot of people seemed interested in Alien Desires (which I only had a postcard for). Hopefully I get some preorders. A lot of people were also interested in my other series, and I get the feeling they might buy the e-books later. Fingers crossed!

Overall, I would attend this event again, but alas, next year (Aug 8, 2026) I’ll be on a cruise. I know, you feel really sorry for me, huh? Haha!

Here’s what I read since my last update:

Book 9

Dates read: April 12-26, 2025
Title: Slay
Year of publication: 2023
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series:  Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #30
# of Pages: 412
Paper or plastic: Mass market paperback
How obtained: Purchased from B&N
Blurb from Goodreads: Anita Blake is small, dark, and dangerous. Her turf is the city of St. Louis. Her job: U.S. Marshal—Preternatural Branch. She’s faced horrifying monsters and brutal killers and come out the other side still standing.
    Considering how things in her life tend to go, Anita never expected her walk down the aisle with Jean-Claude to go smoothly. They’ve already been confronted with naysayers and a power-hungry ancient evil, but now Anita has to do the one thing that actually scares her: introduce her very religious, very human relatives to her fiancé—the newly crowned vampire king of America.
    As Anita tries to keep the peace between the family she left behind and the family she’s chosen, dark forces jump at the chance to take advantage of the chaos. With her happy-ever-after at risk and everyone’s immortal souls hanging in the balance, Anita grapples with a hard truth: Blood makes you related, but loyalty makes you family.
Recommend: Yes
My thoughts: There were actual times I did NOT want to put the book down, but had to. Talk about frustrating. But now I’m wondering where #31 is. It’s been almost two years. She usually has the new one in hard cover by the time the latest is in paperback, but I don’t see anything. I won’t panic. Yet.

FYI: Registration for Literary Love Savannah (July 9-13) ends May 1^st, so if you’re looking to attend, don’t wait too long. This is the last LLS for a while. Which is sad, but highly understandable. Just comment that you’re interested and I’ll send you the details (or just go to their FB group https://www.facebook.com/groups/283444507738356). I really like this convention (and it is a convention, not just a book signing). I have a lot of fun with the readers.

Happy Reading!

Stacy

Finished Reading “Smolder” and I Selected a Release Date!

Alien Desires is now with my copy editor. That’s the last step before I publish it. So… I chose a release date.

July 1.

This weekend I plan to set up preorders. When I do, I will then share all the buy links. But I picked a date! That was probably the hardest thing for me to do. This book has been so long in the making, I really doubted it would be available to everyone. I’m so glad I stuck with it. Because I really LOVE this story!!

Here’s what I read since my last update:

Book 8

Dates read: April 3-11, 2025
Title: Smolder
Year of publication: 2023
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series:  Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #29
# of Pages: 358
Paper or plastic: Mass market paperback
How obtained: Purchased from B&N
Blurb from Book: Vampire hunter Anita Blake is no stranger to killing monsters. It’s part of her job as a preternatural U.S. Marshal, after all. But even her experience isn’t enough to stop an ancient evil that is bent on destroying everything—and everyone—she loves.
Recommend: Yes
My thoughts: It’s been awhile since I read book #28. I was able to just dive in like I hadn’t read a bunch of books inbetween! I have #30, and will read it next. Somehow, I’m wondering if this is the end of the series. Guess I’ll find out soon enough. I really love this world, though.

After I set up Alien Desires at all the places I sell at, it will be back to work on The Alien’s Change of Heart. If I keep at it, that one will be released next year. Fingers crossed!!

Happy Reading!

Stacy

Finished Reading “An Enchanted Knight”

Again, I finish a book and go to blog about it and something else, but that something else never materializes. So… book it is, then.

Here’s what I read since my last update:

Book 7

Dates read: March 25 – April 3, 2025
Title: An Enchanted Knight
Year of publication: 2025
Author: Hildie McQueen
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series:  The Cursed Kingdom #1
# of Pages: 246
Paper or plastic: Trade paperback
How obtained: Purchased from B&N
Blurb from Book: Gwyneth “Gwen” Lockhart has a rare and powerful gift—she helps lost spirits find peace and cross over. When she takes on a job a beautiful Scottish Castle, she expects it to be like any other. But when she encounters the ghostly presence of Lord Tristan McRainey, a knight who died centuries ago, something feels different. Drawn to him in ways she can’t explain, Gwen begins to wonder if Tristan is not a ghost at all, but a man cursed and trapped in time by dark magic.
    Lord Tristan McRainey has been imprisoned for three hundred years, bound by an evil wizard’s spell along with four of his fellow knights. When Gwen enters his world, he’s certain that she holds the key to breaking the enchantment. Confident that he can make her fall in love with him and sacrifice whatever it takes to free him, Tristan has no doubt the plan will work. But what he doesn’t expect is to find himself falling for her first.
    And as their bond deepens, the cost of breaking the curse may be higher than either of them imagined.
Recommend: Yes
My thoughts: Interesting story. I enjoyed it. This is the first book I’ve read from this author because I believe it was the first paranormal-type book I’ve noticed she’s written (she has a LOT of historical & contemporary romances, if that’s your thing). Since this is a new series for the author, hopefully I remember to get book 2 once it’s written. But we all know how well my memory works… It doesn’t! :D

I got Alien Desires back from the editor (this was the second go round), so now I’m reading it out loud, fixing the minor things she found, and then after all that, will send it to my copy editor (aka my daughter—and yes, I pay her!). Publication day is almost here!

Happy Reading!

Stacy

Finished Reading “You Can Hide” and Back at Writing

Since Alien Desires is with my editor, I have been able to get back to The Alien’s Change of Heart. I made a lot of changes to Book 1 which made a lot of what I had previously started in Book 2 obsolete. But I’m having fun coming up with new stuff. It’s been so long since I actually wrote something new. I forgot how much fun it could be. Well, until I hit a dead end. At least that hasn’t happened too much this go round. But the book is young…

Here’s what I read since my last update:

Book 6

Dates read: March 8 – 24, 2025
Title: You Can Hide
Year of publication: 2022
Author: Rebecca Zanetti
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series:  Laurel Snow #2
# of Pages: 341
Paper or plastic: Mass market paperback
How obtained: Purchased from B&N
Blurb from Book: Calling Laurel Snow’s relationship with her newly discovered half sister challenging is an understatement. Not only does Laurel suspect Abigail is behind the mysterious disappearance of their father, but her erratic behavior also makes life in Laurel’s small hometown interesting, to say the least. Still, when Abigail claims someone is now out to kill her, Laurel’s instinct to protect her sister goes into overdrive. Then things get even more dicey as dead bodies start turning up in the icy waters of the Sauk River and there’s only one connection among them: Abigail…
    Having Fish and Wildlife Captain Huck Rivers bringing in those bodies with his dive team only complicates matters. Huck is as impulsive and fiery as Laurel is coolly analytical, which makes their alliance risky at best. But standing up to such a demonically brilliant killer is going to take all the help Laurel can get. Because Laurel’s attempt to save her troubled sister’s life might cost her own…
Recommend: Yes
My thoughts: Parts of this dragged on a little, which made it easy for me to put down at times. I still enjoyed it, though. I like the characters very much. And while the romance is barely there, it is there, which is fine by me!

Some days interesting ideas run through my head and I think, “I should write a blog about that. Maybe after I finish the book I’m reading.” Thing is, I don’t write ANYTHING down, thus forgetting the interesting idea. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever learn!

I must remember to WRITE IT DOWN! Do you have this same problem? It’s frustrating, isn’t it?

Happy Reading!

Stacy

Finished Reading “Starter Villain” and … My Normal

For having metastatic kidney cancer, I’m one of the lucky ones. My disease seems to be in remission and the treatments to keep it that way haven’t given me horrible side effects (like losing hair). But the disease DOES kind of tie me to the oncology clinic. Every four weeks, at least.

It also comes with quarterly CT scans and the occasional MRI. And those can be a nuisance. It’s not just having the scans; it’s having the contrast with the scans. I have to drink something prior and then have some dye injected via an IV during.

I was supposed to have my last CT scan on Tuesday. I drank the contrast two hours before and checked in at radiology 15 minutes before my scheduled scan. Except the system was down. They could conduct the scan, but they didn’t have access to my lab work to see if they should DO the scan. It got so late, that the stuff I drank was no longer viable and they had to reschedule.

So now I gotta repeat the process on the 11^th. I can’t imagine drinking that stuff is all that healthy. Or even getting injected with the dye. But there’s not much I can do about that.

Like I said, it’s a nuisance. It hasn’t gotten me sick…yet. Same with the hormone-therapy pills I have to take for my breast cancer. I have some side effects, but they aren’t debilitating. Thank goodness!

I guess this is what normal is for me now. Just like getting old!

Here’s what I read since my last update:

Book 5

Dates read: February 26 – March 7, 2025
Title: Starter Villain
Year of publication: 2023
Author: John Scalzi
Genre: Humorous
Series:  N/A
# of Pages: 262
Paper or plastic: Trade paperback
How obtained: Purchased from B&N
Blurb from Book: Inheriting your uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who’s running the place.
    Charlie’s life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.
    Then his long-lost uncle, Jake, dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.
    But becoming a supervillain isn’t all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they’re coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.
    It’s up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.
    In a dog-eat-dog world…be a cat.
Recommend: Yes
My thoughts: This was an interesting story and I enjoyed it. Certainly different than what I normally read. But I follow John Scalzi on social media and he lives in Ohio, so I just had to try him out and that cover is kind of what hooked me. If you like humorous stories with a bunch of weird stuff, give it a try.

I finally finished watching Star Trek: Voyager. I’m still surprised at how I knew all the characters, but it was like watching the series for the first time. Bizarre, huh? Now I’m starting Quantum Leap (w/Scott Bakula). I loved that show when it aired, but I’m guessing my re-watching will be like Voyager: seeing it for the first time. I just don’t know if I can blame my lack of memory on old age or the cancer drugs. Heck, it might be both!

Happy Reading!

Stacy