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! 🤣
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.
