I've been MIA because of storms, travel, and illness. It’s been a hell of a month. Hopefully I’m back on track all though my throat hurts so I may be getting a cold, cross your fingers for me. *Update, I’m sick!!
I’m excited to announce a variety of upcoming engagements. I can’t give you all the details yet for some of them, but details will come in a future blog.
November I4th Special posts with influencer, she made graphics for all of my books
December 3rd, I’m doing an interview on a bookish talk show, Briggs on Books.
December something (s) I’m going to be included in a stuff your kindle event.
December 28th, Books for Boos Author Takeover (Charity)
Spring 2025 Vile release! My first complete series.
July 12, 2025 Feel the Heat, Author Book event, Tampa FL
August 9, 2025 Flirty in Tampa Author Book event, Tampa FL
August 15, 2026 Nugget Con, Author Book event, Lakeland FL
I had a drawing for my ARC reviewers for Violet’s Tales, the winner was Frankie Bell, she was excited. I also had a giveaway for my Reader Facebook Group because we made it to 500 members. The winner for that giveaway was Emily Burke. It’s so much fun having a giveaway.
There’s a lot of talk about book bans and the president elect banning romance books. I’m not into politics and I don’t want to discuss anything political, I’m only going to report things that authors and readers are talking about. I’m not personally worried about a book ban, even if there was one, it won’t last, they never do.
There’s also a new social media platform, BlueSky. I signed up to make sure I could get my username. But I’m hearing more and more about it, we'll see if it lasts. It seems like a cross between Twitter and Threads to me. I really enjoy Threads, so I prefer it at the moment, all though I’m noticing more scammers on @Threads lately, they’re always waiting to pounce.
I’m over 100k words on my WIP, Vile. It’s going well and I’m excited to finish it. I got the cover for it this week and it’s fantastic! My cover designer is amazing. She did a great job as usual putting together what I was hoping for in my head. I’m grateful to have her.
Christmas is fast approaching so it’s time for another installment in my best friends’ fantasy story. I’m trying to finish Vile first, but I might run out of time. I need to ship it to California, so I need to have it written and finished with plenty of time to get through the Christmas rush.
I’m participating in an online gift exchange with some other authors, we’re using an App called Elfster, if you’ve never tried it, you should check it out it’s very user friendly. It’s perfect for friends and family gift exchanges when everyone is spread out. I’m considering trying it with my extended family.
Of course, here in the US we’re gearing up for Thanksgiving, the standard is turkey for the holiday meal. My grocery store hasn’t had any turkeys in months, I broke down and bought one from the big box warehouse store near me. I've never seen my store without any turkeys in November before. I’m not sure if it’s still from the recent hurricanes or some other reason, but a turkey shortage for Thanksgiving won’t be a good thing for an area already struggling to recover. I’m still dealing with insurance companies and service companies for repairs, it’s still fresh! (Unlike the missing turkeys at my local store. Sorry I couldn’t stop myself. I’ve diagnosed my cheesy humor as a leftover need to remember my father every day.)
Something I've been thinking about lately is the genre I chose for my newest release. I haven’t asked this question in a dark romance group, but I think I will. What makes a book dark romance? Does the romance part need to be dark? Or the story is dark and has romance? I called mine Romantic Horror because it’s a horror story with romance in it, I felt like dark romance means the romance part is dark. I've read some disturbing dark romance books where the “romance” is so dark it’s more like assault. As I've mentioned before I don’t like books where young women think assault is love. I’m much more diligent about trigger warnings since I was blindsided by a very disturbing scene in a book because I ignored the trigger warnings the author provided. I didn’t know I had any triggers until I did.
There’s always lots of discussion about trigger warnings. Old school authors especially in the darker genres like horror and psychological thriller, feel like trigger warnings are just spoilers. If someone wants to read in those genres, they should expect the story to be disturbing. I don’t disagree with this argument, I just think in romance novels, especially in the case of assault, there should be a warning. It’s not always apparent from the blurb.
Another topic of recent discussion has been AI again. I've received more than one invitation to a seminar or webinar to learn how to incorporate more AI into my writing. I personally believe books should be written by authors not AI. But I don’t care what other authors choose to do, it’s not my business. We all use AI every time we Google something, so who am I to judge? But for me, I won’t use AI to write any of my books, not even one line. I use it to make marketing materials, and I think it’s perfect for that because I have no marketing graphics skills and with so many social media platforms, I’m forever in need of new things to catch a reader's eye.
I'd love to know what you think about AI. Do you use it to write? For making book covers? What do you think about authors who use it to write their books? People say they can tell right away if something was written by AI, I’m not sure I could tell. Maybe I've been reading things written by AI and I have no idea.
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As always thanks for reading!!
Here are a few local bookstores independently owned-
https://www.TheGildedPageBookStore.com
https://www.PortkeyBooks.com
@BackintheDayBooks on FB, IG, X
https://www.WhiteRoseBooksandMore.com