Vortual Tourist 07/02/24

 

Virtual Tourist 07/02/24

Table of Contents

News/Musings	Story Origin Swap 1
Virtual Tourist – Deliver US Mars	Story Origin Swap 2
Free Sci-Fi Reads for Summer 2024 Group Promo	So Legend Says Group Promo
	Reviewer’s Corner

Greetings!

Sorry, it’s been so long since I’ve posted. Th newsletter always takes priority and sometimes time/life gets in the way of me posting these at the blog. Though newsletter peeps do get extra goodies. So if you want some free reads and the extra stuff, sign up for it here. (Hurry and join so you can read the new Discoveries of Julia Xero Prequel Novelette—Kara for FREE!)

News/Musings

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This last week has been super busy! Lots of stuff coming to a head all at the same time (as per usual!).

The kids were gifted with a kiddie pool, and they filled it up for the dogs, figuring they might enjoy it with all this heat. My daughter splashed them, trying to entice them, but no go. They drank out of it but wouldn’t get in it. I told her if she got in there, at least one of them would follow. She hasn’t tried that yet. I hope her hubby will if she won’t. Stay tuned?

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Writing News

I hit the button the other day on the Alien Redemption Audiobook! It should take a few days to go through Audible’s final checks before it goes live. They hedge that it could take 10 days, but I’ve seen them come through sooner. 

In the meantime, Zumaya has allowed me to put their books up for a Direct Sales experiment. So the Alien Redemption ebooks are on Special for .99 cents (DS only!) So, if you enjoy reading along with the audiobook, this is your chance to get the ebook at a super low price. Or get it at Smashwords for 25% off for the month of July along with my other ZP titles that you can find here.

 

 

 

Extra content today:

1) StoryOrigin Swap 1 (UBL)

2) StoryOrigin Swap 2 (UBL)

3) Free Sci-Fi Reads for Summer 2024 Group Promo

4) So Legend Says: An All-Genre Book Fair for Stories with Mythological Creatures and Gods Group Promo

 

 

Scroll on down to get all the deets. 😉

Divided

StoryOrigin Swap 1 (UBL)

Murder rips the veil off her magic…

Caly Cook likes being hidden and alone.

The demons of her long lost family make it easier not to trust people. She’s also living as a human, and the last thing she wants is to advertise her ability to leave her body and roam the world as pure spirit.

But when a series of brutal killings ravage young supernaturals, Caly must use every gift she possesses to track down the murderer. After she teams up with a gorgeous wizard named Knox Alexandru, the irresistible attraction between them shatters her carefully constructed solitude.

As the young victims pile up, the city of Orament teeters on the edge of interspecies chaos. Can Caly accept herself – and face the darkness in her own past – before more lives are lost?

The Thorn Demon series is urban fantasy with a thread of clean but stormy romance. In each book, characters go through hard times and confront their deepest fears. The story builds and builds, taking readers through detective mystery, portal fantasy and psychological suspense – you will not believe where you end up!

Deliver US Mars

It’s kind of funny how I’m talking about this game this time around and one of the swaps is also set on Mars! Weird, right?

From what I understand this is the second game in the Deliver Us series, though you don’t need to have played the first to enjoy the second as you get flashbacks and info. 

In a dark future, the Earth is dying. The original ray of hope, a set of three special rockets with top-of-the-line tech, was stolen by those entrusted with their care and implementation. 

Years later, Earth receives a call for help originating from Mars. A mission is quickly cobbled together in the hopes they can retrieve the three stolen craft and return them to Earth. 

You can see all the currently uploaded pics here.

Name screen for the game with a far-off spaceship in the distance.

Kathy’s bedroom as a young child. I would totally have loved a room like this!

 

The view from Kathy’s childhood home. A vista no longer to be found on Earth by the time she’s 16+

 

Academy and training facilities for the WSA – The World Space Agency.

The WSA Museum – portraits on the right are of the Lunar Council – the same three people who orchestrated the theft of the three rockets. The one on the far right is Kathy’s father.

The cute hovering machine next to her is Ayla, a companion AI that you’ll use in solving some of the puzzles and unscramble coded holograms left for Kathy on Mars.

 

A gorgeous sunrise as Kathy and her teammates head to their spaceship for their mission to Mars.

Kathy on the elevator to the ship’s entry point.

The game’s main menu screen

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Hard Start: Mars Intrigue

StoryOrigin Swap 2 (UBL)

When forces split them apart, how do they come together?

Space Division spy Cody Greene lies for a living. That’s one of the reasons he looks at every woman he meets with skepticism. He’s single because of his dysfunctional relationship with his pampered, politician mother and the fact that he’s still in love with his high school sweetheart, who died mysteriously years ago.

Cody’s in a tight spot when he’s ordered to marry a naive tech genius named Lisa Shim. She’s part of the elite class and has invented everything that makes Mars amazing. Restricted by his oath, he can’t tell her she’s in danger.

Is Lisa like his mother? Or is she the perfect match he’s been praying for?

​Free Sci-Fi Reads for Summer 2024 Group Promo – Hey eager space adventurers! 🌌 Get ready for an epic summer of interstellar proportions! Blast off into the unknown with FREE science fiction books that will blow your mind! Explore new authors, dive into captivating space operas, and boldly go where no reader has gone before! 🚀

So Legend Says: An All-Genre Book Fair for Stories with Mythological Creatures and Gods – Group Promo – mythological creatures, legends, and more!

🌟 Shout out to Reviewers Corner! 🌟

Thanks this month go to:

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Black Jade – M Walters

Cross-eyed Dragon Troubles – droodles

Music of Death Blues – Alexandra Lugo, Alexandra Reads

The Secret Humankind – Tig Shalina Ozuna, Kindle Customer, Sasha, Ali

 

 

A great big THANK YOU to all the reviewers!

(Do you want your name in here, too? All you need is to post a one or two-sentence review at Bookbub, Goodreads, Amazon, or send me a link if it’s posted elsewhere and I will add you here next round!)

I hope this first half of 2024 has treated you well and will continue to do so for the rest of the year!

Until next time!

 

Gloria

I'm Baaack!

 

I’m baaaaccckkkk!

 

 

Table of Contents

News/Musings	StoryOrigin Swap 1
The Trip	StoryOrigin Swap 2
Science Fiction & Fantasy Audiobooks	Fascinating Historical Fiction

 

 

Happy Weekend, y’all! 

Yes, I am back! (Do you remember me?) I am trying to catch up on endless emails, pending projects, vacation recuperation, and more~! 

 

News/Musings

It’s funky being home. Though it’s weirder when it occasionally feels like I never left. 😝

Hubby and I went on a 25-day cruise! (More details farther down.) Though we’ve been married a long time, it was rare when we took a vacation together. I usually used my vacation days to go to conventions or to write. He took his to play games on the computer. (He’s a homebody type guy.) 😁

Anyway, about ten-plus years ago, we decided to go somewhere together. He’d heard a lot about ship cruises, so he looked into it (even bought a cruising for dummies book), and we took a short one down to the Caribbean on Disney.

He totally fell in love with the concept of a moving hotel. All he had to worry about was getting up on time to go on excursions, and everything else was taken care of by someone else. 

The last cruise we went on was over seven years ago when we went to the Mediterranean. I’d been dying to go back to see Herculaneum now that we’d seen Pompeii (and most of the artifacts had been moved to the Naples Museum). 

With all my back issues and not knowing what other health excitement might be in our future, we decided we should go while we still could. I would also use it as a test run to see how my back did and whether or not I could get back into the convention circuit.

An item on hubby’s bucket list was to cross the Atlantic. And he found a different cruise line that would give us both what we wanted. 

This was the longest vacation we’ve ever taken! Sadly, homeboy doesn’t want to ever be gone that long ever again.  ROFL! 🤣

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Writing news

Yes, I actually have some! Bwahahahaha!

Right before we left, The Secret Humankind Audiobook went live!

You can find it at Amazon, Audible US, Audible UK, and Apple.

I still have some review copy codes for the US and UK, which you can request here. The narrator, Blues Bunny, did a great job!

I’ve also finished the first draft of Book 2—The Secret Aftermath! For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been going through the manuscript again, and my editor has me slotted for early June to work on it. So 🤞, book 2 could hit the shelves in August 2024!

 

 

Extra stuff I’ve shoved in here:

1) StoryOrigin Swap 1 (Direct)

2) StoryOrigin Swap 2 (UBL)

3) Science Fiction & Fantasy Audioooks Group Promo

4) Fascinating Historical Fiction Group Promo 

More deets on all of these in their sections. 😊

 

StoryOrigin Swap 1 (Direct)

The Unknown Sun

The world of Skyfall will die unless Moira finds the lost immortals.

Seventeen-year-old Moira is haunted by the accidents that claimed her family. When she is attacked by a strange boy who seems to know too much about her past, Moira fears death will come for her a third time. Saved by twins Airi and Bel, she is taken to their world and safety.

Or so they thought.

Skyfall is dying, the land destroyed during a supernatural war. Those who had protected it, the lost immortals, have gone missing and the land has decayed beyond redemption unless their magic can restore it. Armed with a mysterious talisman Moira, Airi, and Bel must find a journal left by the twins’ dead mother that will tell them how to find and free the Immortals known as The Unknown Sun.

Deeper, darker, secrets unravel around them when the journal reveals shocking information…because everything has a price and the price just might be Moira.

A rebellion against the Windwalker kingdom stalks them from the shadows until it threatens their quests and the boy who tried to destroy Moira appears and is determined to seek revenge.

The Trip

 

Our trip was through Holland America. This was our first time with them. Our other three trips were through the Disney Cruiseline, but for longer trips Holland American has you covered.

We liked some things better with Disney and others with Holland America, and a lot of other things were practically the same. Both have great service and good food, so I would travel with either again.

Our ship for this trip was the Oosterdam (pronounced Osterdam) with Captain Wouter in charge. It’s a mid-sized ship with 768 crew and over 1,900 passengers.

Her double smokestack makes her quite easy to spot. 😁 Their logo is everywhere, from the china to the salt and pepper shakers.

Below is a list of the stops and dates. Several of these we had to bail on the excursions as hubby caught a cold and later got food poisoning or a bug. I didn’t catch the cold, but the other hit me our last night on board (after all the luggage had been put outside the rooms. Made for a fun-filled evening and next day. Whee!)

25-Day Cruise
Date	Location	Skipped
4/5/24	Ft Lauderdale, FL
4/6-4/11	Crossing the Atlantic
4/12/24	Ponta Delgada, Azores
4/13-4/14	Sea Days
4/15/24	Cadiz, Spain
4/16/24	Malaga, Spain	X
4/17/24	Cartagena, Spain	X
4/18/24	Alicante, Spain
4/19/24	Barcelona, Spain

 

Date	Location	Skipped
4/20/24	Villefranche-sur-Mer, France
4/21/24	Livorno, Italy
4/22/24	Civitavecchia, Italy
4/23/24	Naples, Italy
4/24/24	Taormina, Sicily, Italy
4/25/24	Valletta, Malta
4/26/24	Sea Day
4/27/24	Souda, Crete, Greece
4/28/24	Rhodes, Greece	X

 

Date	Location	Skipped
4/29/24	Kusadasi, Turkey	Hubby Only
4/30/24	Piraeus, Greece	Early Flight 🙁

I have a million (okay, not that many, but a TON) of pictures and short videos of the trip.  I’m hoping to eventually add them to my website photo folder. I will also post a picture or video a day on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and MeWe. This should keep me busy for a year or more. LOL.

I should be back to the regular programming soon.

As to the back test – it was mostly a fail. I can walk all I want, but I can’t be carrying anything, or it sets it off. Bad seats aggravate it. By the time we were done with the flight to Florida, the lines out of the airport, the lines at the port, the line to get lunch, etc.—it was mad. I’d brought a laptop so I could write during any free time, so that went mostly out the window. Luckily, aside from being in a little pain and wiggling in the bus seats, excursions were totally doable. I used hubby as a mule. 😝 I also availed myself of the acupuncturist on board—8 plus years of experience and Japanese—he was fab! My back started behaving again just a few days before we were done. By letting hubby continue to be my mule through all the airport mess on the way back, and using the better seats to recline and sleep, I cut it off at the pass on the way home at least. Phew!

 

StoryOrigin Swap 2 (UBL)

King of Time

A fake princess. A talking horse. A stableboy who pulls a sword out of a stone despite the hovering harpy. And Time falling for a mortal.

What evil hides amongst us?

Grappling with writer’s block Lila wishes for more time and…gets a hot dude who claims he’s just what she ordered and there to help. Next, she is given a kingdom and a first-hand experience of figments of her imagination taking over her life. As Lila keeps unsticking herself from sticky situations Time – who likes to be called Adam – discovers emotions. With a stableboy, a potential deity and the warrior king all vying for her affections, Lila has to navigate how to keep her friendships and her dignity intact.

A quirky pre-Arthurian romp through an imaginary kingdom, which will have you chuckling. No cusswords, sex or profanity in this fairy-tale for adults. Also suitable for young adult readers.

Optimists and pessimists each get their own ending – because there are moments when the decisions we or others take lead to completely different outcomes.

Science Fiction & Fantasy Audiobooks​ Group Promo – SF and Fantasy stories for your ears.

Fascinating Historical Fiction Group Promo​ – stories set in all sorts of locals and different time periods.

 

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I’m thrilled to be back! I hope you are, too! 😝 

 

Till next time!

Gloria