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Happy Friday, everyone! A little bit of a reading for Dionysus from Books, Bulls and Bacchanals, the first story in the Brandywine Investigations: Family Matters. Poor Dio. Libraries are not his friends.  BRANDYWINE INVESTIGATIONS: FAMILY MATTERS
Pre-order links: Amazon Kobo iBooks Barnes and Noble The second Brandywine Omnibus contains books #4 and #5 (both full-length novels), plus a short story as a bonus. With his career firmly established and his reputation as a successful PI growing, Hades should have the perfect life with his human lover, his faithful ferryman, his dogs and the parts of his family still speaking to him. But murder and chaos are never far away for death lords as his nephew Dionysus and his oldest friend Charon are drawn into the maelstrom. Includes: Books, Bulls, & Bacchanals: Brandywine Investigations #4 The god of wine and orgies teams up with the librarian of the gods to investigate a murder. Should go well, don't you think? Midwinter Dancing: Brandywine Investigations #4.5 Ing's grandmother has always told her about meeting the old gods. She's never believed it until one snowy midwinter night. Pack Up the Moon: Brandywine Investigations #5 Death isn't working within normal parameters. Charon the ferryman needs to figure out why before it's too late, with or without the help of a certain, paws-in-everything raccoon god. Please note: Books, Bulls & Bacchanals has been re-edited with a few story adjustments for this edition.
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For those of you steeped in classical literature, none of this will be news. (Skip forward and buy the story - you'll have fun with it ;) ) For those not as familiar, a little bit about why the heck I'd want to write about a minotaur. Properly, of course, it should be THE Minotaur, capitalized and said with a certain sense of dread, but when you write fantasy you get to assume that perhaps there was more than one. I digress. The story of the Minotaur, in brief, is that King Minos of Crete made a promise to Poseidon that he didn't keep, Poseidon got mad and sent a beautiful bull to the island and then made Minos' wife Pasiphae, fall in love with it. Yeah. The myth goes there. We'll skip ahead... Pasiphae has a child with this bull and it's not quite right. It had the head of a bull and the body of a man. She tries to do right by the baby, but it grows up huge and fierce and starts eating people. Mom and stepdad shut the Minotaur up in a labyrinth and send it sacrifices from vassal kingdoms. Eventually a prince from Athens, Theseus, comes along and slays the Minotaur and ends the terrible consumption of youths and maidens. So far, so good. Thing is, the story we know is, not shockingly, told from an Athenian point of view. The Minoan culture on the island of Crete didn't leave much behind for us in the way of their own stories. But when people studied the ruins of Knossos on Crete, they started to put some things together. The bull was revered in Minoan culture and there were bull dancing ceremonies where athletic young people vaulted bulls using their backs and horns. Some accidents probably occurred, but I very much doubt the bulls had any interest in eating humans. (Eeeew, say all the bulls.) The labyrinth as well is most likely an exaggeration of the complexity of Minoan architecture, which did tend to be twisty and turny. I guess the Athenians didn't like that. So what we see in the myth of the Minotaur is partly cultural misinterpretation and partly a once conquered people telling stories about the evil oppressor - whether the stories were true or not. It's this and the general character of Theseus himself - he was a total jerk - that's always made me more sympathetic to the Minotaur. I've often wondered what he was really like. In Bulls, Books and Bacchanals, I finally got to tell the Minotaur's side of the story. Somewhere deep down, I think I've always wanted to. Releasing next Wednesday. Up for pre-order now;  BRANDYWINE INVESTIGATIONS: FAMILY MATTERS
BRANDYWINE INVESTIGATIONS #2 Amazon Kobo iBooks Barnes and Noble With his career firmly established and his reputation as a successful PI growing, Hades should have the perfect life with his human lover, his faithful ferryman, his dogs and the parts of his family still speaking to him. But murder and chaos are never far away for death lords as his nephew Dionysus and his oldest friend Charon are drawn into the maelstrom. Includes: Books, Bulls, & Bacchanals: Brandywine Investigations #4 The god of wine and orgies teams up with the librarian of the gods to investigate a murder. Should go well, don't you think? Midwinter Dancing: Brandywine Investigations #4.5 Ing's grandmother has always told her about meeting the old gods. She's never believed it until one snowy midwinter night. Pack Up the Moon: Brandywine Investigations #5 Death isn't working within normal parameters. Charon the ferryman needs to figure out why before it's too late, with or without the help of a certain, paws-in-everything raccoon god. Please note: Books, Bulls & Bacchanals has been re-edited with a few story adjustments for this edition.  For those who heard me read from Pack Up the Moon in Rhode Island and at Annie's Book Stop in Worcester (nearly a year ago), it's finally here. Brandywine Investigations: Family Matters is the second Brandywine omnibus to release. The first one, Brandywine Investigations: Open For Business, contained the first three novella length Brandywine stories. (About 125K words total.) This one contains book 4, novel length Bulls, Books and Bacchanals, 4.5 , the short story Midwinter Dancing, and book 5, novel length Pack Up The Moon. The new omnibus comes in at about 136K words. Um, those are a few words, there. Thank you for you patience and I hope you enjoy. I do suggest that the stories be read in order, so if you're at all interested in gods in the modern world, red panda library assistants and what really happened to a certain legendary dragon, I suggest starting with the first omnibus. If you've been waiting for the second? Here it is... Brandywine Investigations: Family MattersRelease Date February 28
Pre-order links: Amazon Kobo iBooks With his career firmly established and his reputation as a successful PI growing, Hades should have the perfect life with his human lover, his faithful ferryman, his dogs and the parts of his family still speaking to him. But murder and chaos are never far away for death lords as his nephew Dionysus and his oldest friend Charon are drawn into the maelstrom. Includes: Books, Bulls, & Bacchanals: Brandywine Investigations #4 The god of wine and orgies teams up with the librarian of the gods to investigate a murder. Should go well, don't you think? Midwinter Dancing: Brandywine Investigations #4.5 Ing's grandmother has always told her about meeting the old gods. She's never believed it until one snowy midwinter night. Pack Up the Moon: Brandywine Investigations #5 Death isn't working within normal parameters. Charon the ferryman needs to figure out why before it's too late, with or without the help of a certain, paws-in-everything raccoon god. Please note: Books, Bulls & Bacchanals has been re-edited with a few story adjustments for this edition. IT'S DONE! After only about, oh, a year - Pack Up The Moon (Brandywine 5) is off to the faithful beta for rip and shred, um, critique. Yes. That's what I meant. So - nearly there, depending on how strenuous rewrites will be. :D I'm so sorry, to anyone who heard me read at Bishounen Con last year (or at the bookstore the night before) that it's taken so long. Things got...thingy. That and Offbeat Crimes took over my life for a bit. Anyway - this will go into an omnibus like the first Brandywine set to include Books, Bulls and Bacchanals and the short story "Midwinter Dancing" with this one. Onward!  Azeban is pleased. Also - look for the audio edition for Potato Surprise: A Brimstone Prequel, hopefully this week. It's in that "processing" stage at ACX - soon. Vance Bastian has lent his considerable talents to the Brimstone crew and universe once again and I'm so excited for everyone to hear! The winners of the Shaxenger Hunt for audio codes (when we have them) were: Eija Jeremy An Janette and A Shax Groupie :D Congratulations! Links coming soon!  OK - so I'm not quite there yet. I'd hoped to have the next Brandywine story done by month end. It's close - at 48K for the word count and climbing, just not quite finished yet. Charon and Azeban's story will be completed soon, though. Then off to the beta to rip and shred. Pack Up The Moon - coming soon. :D  Azeban The Innocent Next - The Holiday Stories Are Here! Releases begin this week for A Holiday To Remember and continue until 12/30! For all the details, check the Mischief Corner Books website, where there's a lovely cover slideshow. A Holiday To Remember  Also, All The World's An Undead Stage has gone on tour! Blog tour, that is. Look for interviews with characters you might not expect, columns from me and one original flash prequel piece. :D My Fiction Nook - a little post on the theme of family in Offbeat Crimes Hearts On Fire - Officer Krisk Would Like A Word The Novel Approach - a post on who the cast should reflect the setting :) Love Bytes - an extra special flash fiction prequel with Pecca Teecosi Anna Butler - a post about the Walnut Lane Bridge (you'll thank me later) Jessie G. Books - paranormal vs urban fantasy (or You Got Vampires In My UF)  More or less, at any rate. Right now, right this second: Safety Protocols For Human Holidays is up for pre-order. Release is December 9 as part of MCB's A Holiday To Remember collection this year. Something different this year - a science fiction humor piece that's not Brimstone. Pre-order links: Amazon Kobo iBooks   Also right now (!!) Uncommonly Tidy Poltergeists is in audio! Up on Amazon and Audible now, iTunes link coming in the next couple of days. Narrated by the marvelous (and did we mention patient?) Michael Pauley. Amazon Audible Poltergeists has also just received an Honorable Mention in this year's Rainbow Awards - yay!  November 21 Pre-order links goes up for All The World's An Undead Stage next Tuesday! Waaaaagh! The last book in the Offbeat Crimes series (this story arc, at any rate), concerns Erasmus and Carrington, the answers to some burning questions, and undead actors. By the end of November
I'm determined to get to the end of Pack Up The Moon - Brandywine Investigations 5. It's looking very likely at this point. The lovely folks at My Fiction Nook invited me over to be their Author of the Month for March. Pretty darn chuffed about that. :D Last week featured Uncommonly Tidy Poltergeists and Brandywine Investigations with a bit about my 5 Favorite Biology Things. Author of the Month - Angel Martinez - Week One This week features the demon owned and operated ship, Brimstone, and 5 Little Known Facts About Angel. (Yeah, some of you have heard some of these before. Maybe. Possibly. ;) ) Author of the Month - Angel Martinez - Week Two  Writing nearly came to a standstill for Bishounen Con. I'm back on the word count horse this week, though. Feral Dust Bunnies (Offbeat Crimes 4) is coming along slowly - on chapter 2. Should look better in the next couple of days. Pack Up the Moon (Brandywine 5) is waiting for me to finish the Dust Bunnies. I did get to read from it at Bishounen to a wonderfully appreciative audience, though. Always fun. We're also coming to the end of the Marionettes in the Mist story arc. (The weekly blog serial written with Freddy MacKay, J. Scott Coatsworth and Toni Griffin.) Everyone's on their last two to four chapters. We'll wrap up the postings on the blog and then work on getting the story out in novel(s) format. Yay! Some of the lovely character art from Mila May below so far!         Well, hey! It's Thursday again! Somebody tell the weeks to slow down, please. Next week at this time I'm going to be packing up the car and heading for Rhode Island and Massachusetts! - First stop will be Annie's Book Stop where I'll be for an appearance starting at 7pm on Thursday, March 2. Hopefully I won't be too punchy from the drive. This should be interesting. ;) I'll be reading and chatting and signing if you so desire.  -Next stop - Bishounen Con! Where we'll get to hang out with the lovely Jordan Hawk and hubby, the talented Jill Marie Hackett and all of our friends from the Yaoi North tribe! Bishounen is from 3/3-3/5 and you can find me and Freddy in the Dealers Room most of the time, though we will have panels and readings.  OK. So that's the upcoming trip that I'm all excited about and losing sleep over. Cause that's what I do.
The other thing I wanted to mention this week is the WIP's. Those of you who've known me long enough have heard plenty of times that I'm only comfortable working on one thing. I may have other works started that I've set aside, but active works in progress? I want to be working on One Thing At A Time. (Possibly two if I'm co-authoring, since that's a different process.) I'm currently working on four (FOUR!!!) active (ACTIVE!!!) WIP's. And trying not to hyperventilate with competing and overlapping deadlines coming up. There's the ongoing Marionettes in the Mist project that we're getting close to wrapping up. There's the next book in the Offbeat Crimes series, Feral Dust Bunnies, that's due scarily soon. There's the next Brandywine book, Pack Up the Moon, that Isn't on deadline but is still active. And finally there's a secret thing I'm working on that I need to hand in the first couple of chapters this week to see if the publisher wants me to go forward. *pant* *wheeze* *gasp* I'm okay...I'm okay. Thought Thursdays would be a good time for news tidbits, to share where I am with the writey things.
Brandywine 5 (Pack Up the Moon) is in the middle of Chapter Seven, but I've had to put it aside for a moment because I went too slowly and now have a deadline looming. Don't worry, I won't abandon Charon and Azeban. Offbeat Crimes 3 is the looming item, since I promised my editor the next story before winter. Since these aren't long novels, generally (hopefully), I should be all right. This one is titled "Skim Blood and Savage Verse" - if you hadn't guessed from the title, it's Carrington's story and there is a first scene done. Hooray for progress! In the Oh Gods What Have I Done department - I've sent a proposal to Dreamspinner for their new Dreamspun Beyond category romance line. This is a bit of stretch writing for me, since Category Romance is not my normal venue. And they may still find that it doesn't fit once it's written. So - 5K sample due March 1, story due June 1. "The Mage on the Hill" - look for magic and people who need each other. :o Other than that, my conventions are done for the year and I can breathe again! Trying a little experiment here - the folks on my FB group wanted me to read to them. If this works, maybe we'll do a regular feature...
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Angel writes (mostly) Science Fiction and Fantasy centered around queer heroes. Currently living part time in the hectic sprawl of northern Delaware and full time inside her head, she has one husband, one son, two cats, a love of all things beautiful and a terrible addiction to the consumption of both knowledge and chocolate. |
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