Cover for Tempering the Bond

New cover draft for Tempering the Bond. Hope you all like it. Still working out the kinks in the Novella but it should be out before Christmas. Closing the Breech is due next spring.

The photo is credit to Jeff Kubina, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike.

Cover for Closing the Breech

The first draft of the cover design for closing the breech is here! Also, I've added some older drawings to the photobucket feed. I hope you enjoy them.

The photo is titled "Adios" and is courtesy of photographer Peter Anderson under Creative Commons licensing.

New Novella idea

Hello Everyone!

My new plan is to remove Alan and Sage's story continuation from book two, Closing the Breech. It will be separated out into a Novella length story called Tempering the Bond. Look for it to hit the virtual shelves in the next several months. I felt like their points of view were cluttering up book two's storyline with irrelevant items, but the information is still necessary for the continuation of the series. It's likely going to be free to my readers in ebook format only, so please look for it when it comes out! It will slightly delay book two, but the wait will be worth it.

Posting Gap

Apologies to any of you folks who read my blog! I have been buried under work, school, and trying to work on book number two in the Nightblade Saga. Here's a little excerpt from Closing the Breech: 

      “Well, that’s not going to happen. They’re too valuable as hostages. Obviously you care about their welfare. Just agree to sell and I’ll go. You can take your brother to a hospital. Or, I can shoot your sister in law.” He said nonchalantly and aimed his gun at the center of Sage’s forehead. The ominous noise the hammer made when he unnecessarily cocked it echoed through the silent store. Sage let go of Alan’s leg to raise her bloody hands. Alex saw a horrified look flash across his brother’s face when Alan tried to grab her, but he was forced to clamp back down on his leg. The thugs relaxed, thinking that she was only showing that she was unarmed. They were mistaken.

      Every bit of glass in the store shattered out from the force of the firestorm that erupted from Sage’s palms. Alex cowered down against one of the solid counters, shielding his eyes from the heat of the flames and the shards of glass filling the store and littering the sidewalk outside. In the ringing silence, Alex peeked out from behind his arm and swallowed hard when his lunch threatened to make a reappearance. 

      Abasi and his thugs were not much more than charred piles of meat hanging partially out of the broken window frames. Even their guns had melted into useless piles of slag and the stench of singed bone and hair filled the air. Apparently, the vaunted Afrit resistance to fire couldn’t stand up to Sage’s onslaught. He looked over at his timid sister-in-law and saw her gently checking his brother for burns and scorches. Alan was glaring up at her with a shocked, angry expression. She’d apparently surprised him, too. Hells, his brother was right. That one might be shy, but she certainly wasn’t weak.

Southern Ice Storm!

As I'm sure you all know, those of us in the southeastern US are sort of iced into our houses at the moment. One of my coworkers had to take a blowdryer to his front door just to get out. I'm sure all of you up north are thumbing your noses at us for our ice and snow-related closedown, but I thought I would share some things with those of you in snow-having states.

1. It's not really the snow part people are afraid of as much as the ice. It doesn't usually get cold enough down here for it to only be snow. Our winter storms that involve freezing or frozen precipitation almost always include freezing rain or sleet before the snow. It's almost never just snow. Then, when the snow mostly melts in the afternoon and refreezes at night, we're back to an ice issue.
     a. We have lots of pine trees. They accumulate ice, then bend over, then snap and fall. They often block roads, take out power lines, and crush houses and cars. They're not trees that function well in ice storms because almost all of their weight is at the top.
     b. People down here don't know how to handle it if they hit a patch of ice in their car.

2. School districts' primary reasons for closing down are almost always school bus safety. Down south, we have a lot of dirt roads and school buses can't navigate them very well when they are icy. Icy mud and school buses don't mix. Our roads also aren't constructed to be friendly for winter weather. A school district I used to work for didn't shut the district down for ice once and ended up with a school bus embedded into an apartment complex when it slid off of a bridge. Not pretty.
     a. School districts also get a lot of flack when they close down too early or too late. There is a lot of pressure on them coming from both directions.

3. We flat out do not have the infrastructure to handle it.
     a. Our roads are almost all crowned or dirt and mostly have drainage ditches beside them. It's a good recipe for sliding into a ditch.
     b. Our power lines are primarily not buried. They are above ground and vulnerable to ice buildup and falling trees.
     c. We do not have salt or sand trucks. We don't even have the salt or the sand. There are no plows. The police and emergency vehicles do not have snow tires.
     d. Our pipes aren't buried as deeply as those up north, nor are they insulated as well. Pipes freeze, then burst and the resultant water damage is generally bad.
     e. Most people do not posses an ice scraper, rock salt, or a snow shovel. It's hazardous just getting out of our houses.
     f. Most people don't have garages for their cars. Ice and snow build up on the vehicles sometimes even if they are under a carport.

So, when people are judging us down south, please take these kinds of things into account. A lot of them are things we couldn't change even if we wanted to.

One More Free Promotion

Hello, everyone! I'm doing one more two day free book promotion. Hopefully Forging the Bond will get some good downloads. I also am hoping you all are enjoying the book. If you loved it, hated it, or found something specifically troublesome, I would love to hear from you. Your feedback helps me write better books. Send me a message, shoot me an email, comment away. I appreciate every bit. I'm loving on all 600+ folks who have downloaded the book so far. The book has been out for a little over a month now, so lets see how it does!

Overwhelmed by the Response to my Free Book Promotion

Wow, readers! You guys downloaded several hundred copies of my book yesterday! It wasn't just in the United States, either. I had downloads of Forging the Bond in Italy, England, Germany, and France as well. I thought the response was so good I've added another promotion that will run through tomorrow and Saturday. I may extend it to Sunday if the downloads stay as high as they were today. Hopefully people will enjoy the read and I would love to get some feedback, either in email, comment, or review format. Let me know what you think! I'd love to hear it, negative or positive.

New Drawing is up

So, I've improved on my layout somewhat and added a slideshow of my drawings that link to a photobucket instead of the small pictures that used to be there. I've also added another drawing. Let me know what you think. I always appreciate feedback. It makes my books/drawings/whatever better.

My first book has hit the (figurative) shelves!

Forging the Bond is now available through the Kindle store!

http://www.amazon.com/Forging-Bond-Nightblade-Laney-Stuart-ebook/dp/B00HN6OWYY/ref=la_B00HNFJC54_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388706835&sr=1-1

I'm very excited! Now lets see if I can market it well enough to sell some copies. Hopefully if I can get some readers, they'll enjoy the thoughts I've included here.

Took a break for a while, but my book is about ready to publish

Okay, so I haven't written on here in quite a while. I made the mistake of becoming a full time night student this past semester which pretty much killed all my writing time. I will be finishing my undergrad (six years later) next December so I suppose it's worth it.

My book is finally ready to go! After many rejections, I've decided to go the self-publish route. If I make some decent sales, I may pitch to Harlequin. I'm not sure. So Folks, here's my cover and associated blurb:

"Sage Aieto has lived in the guild’s City of Towers since she fled her home in the Queen’s Forest as a teenager. Due to her Half-Elf heritage she is considered somewhat of a curiosity by the human population of the city and is treated as a respected, but excluded, outsider.

Following the violent death of her young apprentice, Sage accepts a field assignment on the borders of Human and Elf territories. Lonesome, she ventures out to a crossroads tavern and accidentally attracts the attention of a formidable male Lipitoare, a race of savage blood-drinkers. While widely known to be dangerous and unpredictable, Sage finds herself unable to resist his raw appeal. Unfortunately, she also attracts the attention of the Elvish military who has been searching for her since her desertion. After an encounter with a border patrol, the Lipitoare finds Sage unconscious in a pile of burnt corpses on the roadside and carries her home to his bed. As his kindness becomes the least surprising thing about him, Sage's lonesome heart could well be on the mend - provided the dangerous rumors about his people prove false."

Just for reference purposes, the original art the cover was built off of belongs to Jeff Kubina and is being used under a creative commons license by me. I will post again when my book rolls out. Fingers crossed!