.............................Free Reads
Baking Lessons by KD Sarge
Zeke's granny has recipes far more dangerous than cookies.
Celestial Voices by Siri Paulson.
Music has power.
.............For You...............
Life as a Moving Target...a continuation by Erin Zarro
Poetry about living with chronic illness.
Hands-On Learning by KD Sarge
Rafe isn't good at math, but Taro has a plan to help.
From Us............................
The Contract</> by Erin Zarro
On the edge of death, no one reads the fine print.
The Penitent by Erin Zarro
Some promises are not worth the price.
Con Aftermath
So, if you guys follow our Twitter or Facebook feeds, you'll know that a few weeks ago we had a table at a smallish scifi/fantasy literature convention called MileHiCon.
We went into this madness with our previous experience on the subject being that we had attended a couple conventions ourselves at various times, and also knowing people who had had tables themselves, though not with any details about how they had run said tables.
Introducing Even the Score
One, two, three,
How many will my victims be?
One, two, three, four,
How many more to even the score?
When Taro Hibiki leads a survival class into the backwoods, he has two goals: to prove himself as an instructor, and to propose to his beloved Rafe before he loses his nerve completely. In the wilds might seem a strange place for that, but it's where Taro feels most at home—and the only place the couple can escape all their other responsibilities.
BFR’s colonists claim the name stands for “Big Effing Rock,” and boast of their planet's dangers. Yet more treacherous than sight-scamps or bomb bugs is a human seeking vengeance. Soon Taro's students are dropping one by one, and no matter what Taro does, the killer stays a step ahead. Worst of all, Taro suspects the students are targets of opportunity—that the ultimate goal is Rafe. Taro would die for Rafe in a heartbeat, but who's going to take care of Rafe if he does?
As it happens, the killer has a plan for that, too.
Even the Score will be available December 1st from Turtleduck Press. It takes place two years after the events of His Faithful Squire. Find a chronology of the Dream'verse here.
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Trust Rafe to set the scene perfectly. We huddled in the deepest, narrowest part of a canyon called Fools Rush In. Sharp grey cliffs rose all around. Rafe the Victim lay in a tangle of rocks at the base of a blank face of stone, blood smeared in a few choice locations. I’d had to limit his artistic vision on that effect. Let him have his way and the trainees would declare him DOA due to blood loss, neatly avoiding their second test. I sat beside him, flicking through the files of my first class on a borrowed handcomp. There wasn’t much. Profile pictures carefully taken to erase all hint of personality, supposedly relevant facts that meant nothing...a criminal conviction ten years ago, high scores on an IQ test, parent of a toddler. Well, that one meant something, maybe—might mean that McCarney was used to life-and-death decisions while dead of sleep deprivation, unless he let his wife handle all that.
A stingfly fluttered by; I swatted it away from Rafe. “You’re sure you’re all right?” I’d moved a lot of the rocks from his chosen spot, but he hadn’t let me move all of them, for “verisimilitude” he said.
“I’m fine, my love.” Rafe smiled under the hat shielding his eyes and scratched at a patch of red on his arm. “Have you ever known me to suffer in silence?”
“Have I ever known you to do anything in silence?”
On a Higher Level
I saw that on Tumblr the other day—the writer knew she was an adult, but she needed help from a higher-level adult. It resonated. A lot.
I don’t think I’m particularly bad at being an adult. I pay my rent, maintain my car, and mostly keep my kid out of major trouble. But I don’t really feel like…a higher-level adult. I mean, I’ve been adulting for more than twenty years and I still can’t make myself keep my bedroom neat. I like it neat—I just don’t always keep it that way.
And writing. You’ve read Siri trying to find ways to write more. You’ve heard from Erin and Kit when they don’t get enough writing in. Well, I’m with them. It may look like I produce, but I know that I spend way too much time not writing.
So I’m trying to organize my life. To level up. To get my stuff together. I mean, if I can learn to think of doing the dishes and keeping up on the litterbox as grinding, maybe I can make this work.