Virtual Tourist 03/22/24

 

Table of Contents

News/Musings	Story Origin Swap 1
Virtual Tourist – Jedi Survivor	Story Origin Swap 2
Fascinating Places Group Promo	Monstrous March Group Promo
	Reviewer’s Corner

Greetings!

I swear I tend to overbook my time. But then still feel like I am not getting enough done. LOL. 

However, in April, I’ll be giving you and me a break! Bwahahaha! 

More details about the hiatus on May 17th! (Assuming you still remember who I am by then. 😝)

News/Musings

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March is proving to be a handful. Boo! But I did skip catching a cold, so yay! 😁

I had an early birthday lunch with my Mom and others yesterday. This lands on my grandmother’s birthday, so she was there in spirit. The big joke for the day – we met at Gloria’s, an El Salvadoran/Tex-Mex restaurant, and I got Gloria’s Super Special. So Gloria ate at Gloria’s and had Gloria’s special. Three Glorias. Now say the sentence three times fast. LOL. 🤣 I think everyone had a good time. 🤞

​

 

Writing News

I’ve hit almost 65,000 words for The Secret Aftermath – Book 2 of the Discoveries of Julia Xero. I have 15,000 to go for my minimum word count threshold, so you get a full novel. (I’ve noticed a weird trend where books are getting shorter and shorter. I’m not going that route. I’d feel cheated as a reader so I won’t do it as a writer if I can at all help it.)

Feeding chapters to the writer’s group as I go, trying to get it as shiny as possible before hitting up my editor. I would love to get it to you by July, so wish me luck! (My hope is to jump straight to book 3 after that.) Eek!

Music of Death Blues has been well received so far, which is awesome! Thank you guys for your awesome support!

 

Extra content today:

1) StoryOrigin Swap 1 (Freebie)

2) StoryOrigin Swap 2 (UBL)

3) Fascinating Places Group Promo

4) Monstrous March Group Promo

 

 

Scroll on down to get all the deets. 😉

The Crimson Inkwell

StoryOrigin Swap 1 (Freebie)

Magic Exists Where We Cannot See.

Book 1 of the Luella Winthrop Trilogy

If someone gave you a pen that turned fiction into fact, how long would it take you to make a proper mess of things?

I’m Luella Winthrop. I live in Dawnhurst-on-Severn, a small English city that’s teeming with excitement over the print industry. After all, if education has been made available for even the working class, why not enjoy it?

Still, even if a woman can read, write, or reign as sovereign, my editor assures me that we don’t sell stories very well. Personally, I think he’s just protective. After all, he is also my fiancé. Why assign me exciting stories when he can tuck me into safe, non-controversial articles about table napkins?

But, I didn’t become a writer to write about table napkins. I dreamed of covering dashing detectives, murders on the cobbles, and unexplained phenomena.

So, when a strange carnival worker offered me a pen that could turn fiction to fact, I took him up on it. Before I knew it, I was suspended in between reality and magic.

Now I have no idea who to marry, what it takes to impress the critics, or how to put my world back together. But, I’d better hurry, because I think I woke up something dark and dangerous.

Jedi Survivor

Yep, still doing this one. I FINALLY figured out how to get the UI to disappear for the photos. But whether you’ll see those this time around is not yet determined. I try to upload 30 pics at a time, then try to pick the best ones to show, so you could get lucky? 😁

You can see all the currently uploaded pics here.

Such funky rock formations. The level of detail is awesome!

Signs of Imperial and other presences on Koboh close to the miner town.

Skoova, one of the many people you can recruit to the town during your travels. He’s a hoot! You will find him and his boat in the most unusual of places as he hunts for fish to add to the tank behind him, which is in the bar.  Every time you find him, he will catch a fish at that location and continue with the whopper of a tale of his adventures. 1 more fish to go!

This is a far view of one of the ancient temples scattered throughout the planet Jedah. Cal gets several unexpected surprises here.  (You can find a gardener for the roof of the bar on this planet.)

Entrance to one of the many temples on Jedah. 

View from the lab at the broken moon orbiting Koboh. The ship is the Mantis. Yu could change the colors in the first game, but we’re stuck with these this time around. The ship has seen better days. 😛

​

Still at the lab on the broken moon. The maintenance droid is still functional and is hundreds of years old. Bad things happened here.

Remains of ancient life on Koboh. There are a couple of giant species still alive there. (And some evil bugs that love to jump on you out of nowhere.)

Grace in the Wings

StoryOrigin Swap 2 (UBL)

A ghost from her past. Her sister murdered. Is a Broadway star facing her final curtain call?

New York City, 1920. Grace Michelle has everything she wants: a home, a family, and a future career as a costume designer for the famed Ziegfeld Follies. Pretty good for a girl who once lived on the streets of New York City. But when her sister, the star of the show, is murdered, Grace’s sheltered life is shattered.

To catch the culprit, the junior designer is forced to give up her dreams and replace her dead sister as the Follies’ star. It’s not long before she realizes she’s a pawn in a series of publicity stunts that put her life at risk—and into the path of a dangerous man from her troubled past—a man she thought she’d left for dead.

If Grace doesn’t find the killer fast, it’s certain she’ll be taking her final bow.

Grace in the Wings is the gripping first book in the Grace Michelle Mystery series. If you like historical mysteries dripping with 1920s swagger, unfettered ambition, and plenty of murderous twists, you’ll love Kari Bovee’s riveting tale.

Buy Grace in the Wings to lose yourself in the glamorous, and sometimes dangerous, world of Broadway’s golden age!

​Fascinating Places Group Promo – Immerse yourself in real-world places!

Monstrous March Group Promo – monsters of all kinds at your fingertips

🌟 Shout out to Reviewers Corner! 🌟

Thanks this month go to:

​

Black Jade – Kerry

Jacques – Carol

The JOY of Murder – Est

Music of Death Blues – 
kerriem3, janelit43, Kuzlin, oldshortfatbroudonwh, geraldinelopez11, Teresa,, Kuzlin, TRL, Ana Luisa Santiago, Patty, Teresa Collins, Kerrie McLean, Eventplanr, WhiteQueen45, Shane Wreight, DVH, Geraldine Lopez, Est, Kat Taylor, Mrs LIR Linda, Patricia Wong, Teresa Collins, Sue Loncaric, Sandy, Tania, Jane Litherland, LizzyLa, Bekki’s Books, and Kerrie

The Prince and Dai – LizzyLa and P.D.R. Lindsay

The Secret Humankind – Dana Ferbrache-Darr and AVG9

 

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!)

They are calling for cold fronts and rain. Stay indoors! Stay warm! 

​Until next time!

 

Gloria

Virtual Tourist 11/03/23

 

Table of Contents

News/Musings	Story Origin Swap 1
Virtual Tourist – Starfield	Story Origin Swap 2
Escape the Holidays with Free Sci-Fi Books Group Promo	It’s a Puzzling Mystery! Group Promo
	Reviewer’s Corner

Greetings!

🥶🧊🥶🧊 It’s been cold lately! It’s no fun going from 80+ degrees, turn on a dime, and hit the low 30s! Eek! Summer worked overtime, and Fall decided to take a vacation and dump us straight into Winter. The forecast says Summer is about to get more overtime by this weekend. Sheesh!

News/Musings

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I hope everyone had a safe and spooky 👻 Halloween 🎃. We did our usual and hid in the dark so we’d get passed by. Hubby can’t be trusted with candy! 🍬🍭🍫 (For several years running he’d buy bags of it, then refuse to give it away, hoarding it all for himself. Bad hubby! So we no longer buy any to keep him out of trouble. 😝

​

 

Writing News

The Daiyu Wu short story to go hand in hand with Book 3’s release is finished! It’s called “The Prince and Dai” (has nothing to do with “The King and I,” but once I realized it rhymed, it would not go away!) That, too, has been sent to the editor’s queue, and I will hopefully get it back in early December and share it with you before it goes up anywhere else.

Below is a teaser for the book cover for Music of Death Blues. In case you’d not noticed on the other Daiyu Covers, each always gets a related flower added to the background and a new cover icon to represent the novel.

The rest of it remains the same to tie all the series books and related shorts together.

For Book 3 – the icon is a steel string guitar, and the flowers are chrysanthemums. Since Blues music is integral to the plot, the cover is blue. (Lighter than the hue used for Jacques.)

For the Dai short (cover still pending), the icon will be a cloud and lightning bolt with poppies as the background flowers.

 

I’ve started back on Book 2 of the Discoveries of Julia Xero! Yay! I’m planning on keeping Julia super busy. Bwahahahahaha!

Extra content today:

1) StoryOrigin Swap 1 (U)

2) StoryOrigin Swap 2 (UBL)

3) Escape the Holidays with Free Sci-Fi Books Group Promo

4) It’s a Puzzling Mystery! Group Promo

 

 

Scroll on down to get all the deets. 😉

Call of the Siren

StoryOrigin Swap 1 (UBL)

The veil between worlds has kept us safe for untold eons. Magic and mundane. Fantasy and reality. Safe, separate, and secure. Now the veil is falling.

Thalia’s a bookworm… and a nobody. Except for her secret superpower.

Hiding from her fears – and from taking any chances – her job as a bookshop assistant is her refuge. Even her best friend and her kind, almost-like-a-father boss don’t know the truth about her loneliness and lack of purpose.

But her safe yet unfulfilling existence falls apart when her boss vanishes. A strange man breaks into her home, and a cult of bloodsuckers start hunting her down. Pulled into a world of witchcraft and mythological creatures, as her untapped gifts begin to emerge, it’s time for Thalia to face her self-worth complex. She must dig deep, learn how to stand proud in her freakish individuality, and figure out how to unlock her supernatural gifts of telepathy and empathy if she’s going to save herself – and stop the veil from falling.

Readers who loved the ancient magics and legend of Moonheart, and fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, will enjoy joining Thalia and her band of misfits as they come together to save the world.

Starfield

I wasn’t planning on playing it, as I’d never heard of it, but hubby had preordered a copy for himself, and my daughter got it too, and he ended up gifting me a copy when I complained no one had told me anything about it when it sounded like my kind of game! 😝

I keep switching back and forth between liking it and not liking it. It’s pretty, has great voices, wonderful music, decent tech, craziness, and a wide quest variety, but almost ZERO in the way of tutorials or help! Some of the stuff you’re having to deal with is complex (shipbuilding, outposts, and more) and you’re just thrown out into the deep end without even knowing which way is up.

It seems to be a trend lately, too, as if game companies just leave it for the fans to do it for them instead of doing a proper job in-house. This makes for a lot of frustration, in my opinion, and I am not fond of it. My game time is limited, and I want to have a good time when I do!

Some of the errors are stupid. Broken quests, the fact three main children in three of the major storylines all look exactly the same! Dudes! While the creatures and plants you encounter during exploration are varied, they soon become duplicates after exploring just a few worlds. (There are some creatures that have reasons for being in multiple places – this complaint is only about the ones you need to scan that are supposed to be native just to those planets.)

But the good outweighs the bad (for the most part), so I’m still plugging along. 😁

You can see all the currently uploaded pics here.

The game’s title screen.

View of the Narion system. The left-hand side shows info on Kreet, and the planet is currently in resource view mode. This is very handy when looking for resources for your outposts.

The Frontier is about to land at the New Atlantis Starport. Loads of lovely details

Wind turbines to generate power. Like No Man’s Sky, there is evidence of ships, machinery, or buildings everywhere. You are never truly alone. 😝

A look at the city of New Atlantis.

New Atlantis is a gorgeous city! Though only citizens can live there. And to be a citizen, you have to prove your worth.

This is the headquarters for the group Constellation. Made up of private citizens, the group seeks to find and gain more information on some metal fragments made of an unknown metal.

The piece you bring sets off the ones already collected, and they form into this. Each time another is found and brought here, it will attach itself to the matrix. What its purpose is is but one of the mysteries you run across.

Conspiracy

StoryOrigin Swap 2 (UBL)

When a signature has the power to start a galactic war….

Parv Zarinth learned early in life that if he wanted to defy his father, he’d have to do it from somewhere half-way across the galaxy. He does his best on Hettamir to represent his father’s interests. He steers away from any conflict that may threaten the family business which translates into galactic empire.

Hettamir is a world with no other than hospitality industry. It’s a pleasure to do business on Hettamir, in every sense of the word. And Parv has been mixing business with pleasure for five years now, flying under the radar of his tyrannical father. The business is to expand his father’s business empire. The pleasure has a name: Ahrun Dyem. She is as beautiful as she is crafty, having risen from the ranks of sex industry to lead her people in a ‘velvet’ revolt.

As the champion of her people’s rights and freedom, she is relentless in lobbying the Galactic Confederation for a treaty that will bring Hettamir protection. It is the last thing the warlords of New Hebrides want.

Parv watches the preparations for the grand event, even as he tries to shake off the feeling that something…or everything is going to go wrong. He finally has what he’s always wanted—a woman he loves and means to keep. She is his whole life, his destiny. And he will fight to his last breath to hold on to his future….

​Escape the Holidays with Free Sci-Fi Books Group Promo – science fiction of all kinds ready for the taking.

Puzzling Mysteries Await You – Group Promo – exercise your little gray cells for Nov 2023.

🌟 Shout out to Reviewers Corner! 🌟

Thanks this month go to:

​

Black Jade – Laura, F.M.M., Kevin Cannon, and rozedovel

The JOY of Murder – Missy, Kevin Cannon, and F.M.M.

The Secret Humankind – Kat Hilner, Terri McClean, June Wiszard, and tbrmorgans1

Willing Sacrifice – Cat Woman

 

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!)

Are you ready for the holidays? They are a coming! Heh heh.

​Until next time!

 

Gloria