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Happy Friday! This week, I have something special - readings from 5 (five!) holiday stories, the first five in MCB's Escape From The Holidays collection. Very short excerpts, but enough to sample some flavors. :) 
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It's that time of year - and once again, Mischief Corner Books has a lovely holiday collection of stories for you. :D Contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, science fiction with queer characters all along the rainbow and holidays that aren't just about Christmas - MCB brings you stories of people trying, in some way, to get away from the holiday grind.  Many of the stories have pre-order links - listed below! Releases begin November 28. :)
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. 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. 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)  What? Overdramatic? Okay. Maybe it's not quite that bad. Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate! But holiday stories ARE up for pre-order for the Holiday To Remember Collection and the first one goes live 11/29 (Watermelon Kisses.) For the full schedule, blurbs, pre-order links and pretty covers, I've done a convenient blog post here: A Holiday To Remember  And yes, I do have a holiday story this year. :D Really should make an annual thing of it. Mine's up for pre-order now, too, and will go live on December 9. Safety Protocols For Human Holidays Growlan Raskli serves as the security officer on an interspecies ship. It's her job to keep the peace amid a wild array of cultural and physical differences. But when senior staff ask her to investigate the new aberrant behavior of their single Human crewmember, she's at a complete loss. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0776H1DZM/ https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/safety-protocols-for-human-holidays https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/safety-protocols-for-human-holidays/id1308094310?mt=11  Also up for pre-order and releasing everywhere, all at once, on January 2, 2018, the final installment of the Offbeat Crimes series arc. If you've been following along, this is the one in which all of your questions get answered. No. Not that one. Um, not that one either... This is the one in which the questions I'm willing to answer get answered. All The World's An Undead Stage Offbeat Crimes 6 (Gay Paranormal Humor) Ebook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0783PL72N https://www.pride-publishing.com/book/all-the-worlds-an-undead-stage Paperback: https://www.pride-publishing.com/book/all-the-worlds-an-undead-stage-print  Don't forget that Shax and the Brimstone crew launched in French this week, too! Captain Shax will be trying to impress everyone with his French all week, I'm sure. L'équipée infernale: La Soufrière, T1 (Hell For The Company - French edition) Reines-Beaux Amazon iTunes Shax, le prince démoniaque des Voleurs, s'est réconcilié avec son existence d'exilé. Il s'amuse comme un fou à foncer d'un bout à l'autre de la galaxie pour sa reconversion professionnelle en tant que contrebandier de patrimoines hauts de gamme. Tout baigne pour lui, merci bien. Bon, d'accord, les vaches anti-gravité lui posent quelques problèmes et certains de ses acheteurs vont finir par lui flanquer un ulcère, mais il s'en tire très bien jusqu'au jour où il rencontre un ange blessé dans une jungle psychédélique. La seule raison qui le pousse à porter secours au jeune homme ailé, ce sont ses ailes dorées, mais la quantité de choses qu'il ignore au sujet des anges pourrait remplir une encyclopédie intergalactique...
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. Okay. Let me see if I can remember all the things for this week. Always seem to forget something.
 I will agonize and dither over a title for a story for days - weeks! - and then complain about it to Freddy. Suddenly, the title's right there. Because sometimes brain needs a kickstart or perhaps just a kick. The holiday story, for inclusion in Mischief Corner Books A Holiday To Remember collection this year, will be titled "Safety Protocols for Human Holidays." This is not one of my more serious stories. I felt I needed to tell you that. (Ha!) Release date is scheduled for December 9. :D  Also - quick reminder that I'll be at Yaoi Con this year (Oct. 6-8 in Santa Clara, CA) at the Mischief Corner Books table. Freddy MacKay will be there and Catherine Dair as our special guest. J. Scott Coatsworth will be joining us on Sunday. Come see us in the dealers room - come for a chat, a hug, some books and some bunnies!
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About Angel
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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