Tag Archives: romance

Time’s Enemy Now Available!

by Jennette,

Time's Enemy CoverOne unwanted gift. One great wrong. One chance to make things right…

When a freak accident leaves Tony Solomon with the ability to travel in time, he becomes an unwilling initiate in the Saturn Society, a secret society of time travelers. Wanted by the Society for a crime he hasn’t yet committed, he seeks help from Charlotte Henderson, the woman whose life he saved decades before he was born. Loyal to the Society, Charlotte faces a terrible choice-condemn the man she loves and to whom she owes her life, or deny her deepest convictions by helping him escape and risk sharing his sentence.

Time’s Enemy is available for Kindle, Nook, and a variety of ebook formats on Smashwords and other retailers.  I’m also going to offer a discount coupon for Smashwords that will only be announced here, so check back soon, or better yet, subscribe!

Buy Time’s Enemy at Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Smashwords | All Romance eBooks

Print edition coming soon

book coverOn another note, Sheri McGathy’s short story “Promises” is now available in the Kindle Store as well! Many thanks to Sheri for letting me use her story as a guinea pig to learn Kindle formatting. If you enjoy epic fantasy and are looking for a quick read, give it a try! “Promises” is also available at Barnes & Noble and Smashwords, as well as iBookstore, Kobo, and other digital retailers.

Do You Judge a Book by its Cover? The Guardian, by Carey Corp

by Jennette,

The Guardian by Carey CorpA few weeks ago, writing friend Carey Corp emailed me, with the subject line “Help!”

No, her email hadn’t been hijacked by spammers. She was trying to produce the cover for the print version of her successful YA paranormal romance, The Guardian. She’d done a nice job putting together the cover for the e- version. And isn’t a cover for a print book simply a matter of adding a back and spine to the ebook cover?

Carey found out it wasn’t when she uploaded her print cover to CreateSpace, only to receive a message that it didn’t meet required specifications. After another try, and another reject, she emailed me.

Carey remembered that I worked in graphic design for over ten years before turning to web design, and later programming. And back when I was active in the field, print was still the thing. I was actually one of the first people in the Dayton area to use computer-prepared files for full-blown, four-color printing films, so all of the issues CreateSpace identified in their emails to Carey, were familiar to me.

The modifications I made were minor as far as appearance was concerned, such as adding another set of wings to the spine – I love little details like this! Reworking the rest with higher-resolution photos took a few hours in Photoshop, tweaking color density, printing to a PDF, then emailing to Carey. When I didn’t hear back within a few days, I figured no news was good news – and it was! See her take here.

I am not a big reader of Young Adult fiction, but going by the description, this is something I would have devoured when I was a teen. A lot of Carey’s readers are adults, too, and the more I read this description as I reworked the art, the more intrigued I became – I might just have to pick up a copy! The Halo Chronicles: The Guardian (Kindle version) THE HALO CHRONICLES: The Guardian (Volume 1) (Print version)

Do you enjoy YA fiction? And, do you pass on a book if the cover’s not quite professional? (I’ll admit it – it takes a lot more to get me to buy if the cover’s less than appealing.) If you’re an author, ever try doing your own cover? As a graphic design professional, I’m a big proponent of “don’t try this at home” but for some, it can work out well. What do you think?

My Town Monday: Guilty or Innocent, 115-year old case – could you decide?

by Jennette,

Dayton, Ohio is no stranger to murder – just watch the news, and it seems there’s one almost every day. But a hundred years ago, murder was a novelty, and a trial for such, a spectacle people came to see from miles away. Yesterday afternoon, Dayton History reenacted such a case in the original Old Courthouse, that still stands at Third and Main today, giving us a chance to see what it might have been like, and even participate in the trial, over a hundred years later.

Dayton's Old Courthouse in the early 20th century

Dayton's Old Courthouse in the early 20th century

Upon entering the courthouse, Dayton History staffers gave the audience a sheet of the text of actual newspaper articles printed at the time. They were printed on yellow photocopy paper, which was amusing considering some of the yellow journalism within. 🙂

In September of 1896, 20-year-old Albert Frantz was accused of murdering Bessie Little, the 23-year-old woman he’d been seeing, whose body was found in the Stillwater River. There were a lot of suspicious circumstances leading up to the verdict of whether Miss Little had committed suicide, as was initially thought, or if she died by another’s hand. Witnesses described how Bessie was caught “in a compromising position” with Mr. Frantz in her parents’ barn, which led to him putting her up in a hotel soon after (there were few living options for single women in those days). It also came to light that she’d seen a doctor, and had been declared pregnant, and Mr. Frantz supposedly wanted to marry her, but was unable due to being underage – and his parents refused to give consent.

At the hotel, they found a letter from Bessie, addressed to Mr. Frantz’s parents, begging them to let their son marry her. But the most telling evidence was found on a newly-constructed bridge, that crossed the Stillwater into what was then a lightly-populated part of town: blood on the bridge itself, and a track mark from it that looked like a buggy had been driven through it.

Reenactment of murder trial in Dayton

Last weekend's reenactment

Mr. Frantz had been planning to take his sweetheart for a ride the last evening she was seen alive.

Other evidence was produced throughout the trial, which in reality, reconvened throughout the next three months. One item was the woman’s skull! It had been kept in a jar of alcohol at the police office, after her body had been exhumed from her resting place in the potter’s field in Woodland Cemetery, when her manner of death was first called into question. When the skull was brought in, the “bailiff” opened the courtroom’s windows, due to the undoubtedly-horrendous smell! The reason the skull was unearthed was probably the biggest factor in the ultimate determination of the court: Miss Little had been shot in the head through the ear, twice.

The prosecution and defense both presented their closing statements – both waxing rather melodramatic at times – then the jury (which were picked from the audience) went to deliberate. As in a modern, Ohio court proceeding, the jury was instructed to issue a guilty verdict only if the prosecution was able to “remove all reasonable doubt.” I was guessing they’d say “Not Guilty,” because despite the evidence, the state hadn’t removed all doubt. When they issued their verdict, the jury agreed, and the “judge” told the defendant he was free to leave.

The Dayton History staffers handed us another sheet of newspaper articles on the way out, containing the results of the trial: Guilty of First Degree Murder! It turns out that, after a series of failed appeals, Mr. Frantz became the fourth person in Ohio to die by electric chair, almost a year later.

Can you imagine that quick of an appeals process now? Or presenting the actual corpse as evidence in a trial? (Thank goodness for modern photography and videography!) And interestingly enough, do you think the modern-day jury was more compassionate, more discerning of the evidence, or maybe just more hard of hearing? (There was a lot of echo in the courtroom, and yes, it was hard to hear sometimes.) Anything fun like this reenactment in your home town? Please share!

Note: This program will be presented three times next weekend, August 5, 6, and 7 –  Details at DaytonHistory.org.
Want to learn more about this case? Check out Spilt Blood, by Curt Dalton (one of the researchers for the reenactment)

More at the My Town Monday blog

Historic photo via Dayton History

Story: Does Size Matter?

by Jennette,

I’m talking about word count, or length of a story. If you’re an author trying to sell to a traditional publisher, then yes, it matters quite a bit. Traditional publishers have guidelines, and most include a word-count range. Too short, and you’re not giving readers enough story for their money. Too long, and your book’s going to cost the publisher more to print and ship, and fewer will fit on the rack at the grocery store (or space allotted on a bookstore’s shelf).

image of books & ebook readerWith ebooks, printing, shipping and shelf space are no longer applicable. A longer book may take up a few more bytes of disk space, and a couple more seconds for the reader to download, but disk space is continually becoming cheaper, to the point that it’s negligible. With increasing bandwidth and cell phone network capacity and speeds, download speeds don’t matter so much either. Where most publishers of genre fiction hesitate to take on books much longer than 100,000 words (epic fantasy and historical fiction being the main exceptions), publishers and sellers of ebooks aren’t operating under the same constraints. Likewise, few readers will plunk down enough cash for it to be worthwhile for a publisher to print a single novella or short story, but with production and shipping not part of the equation, ebooks are a viable medium for short fiction. So does word count matter?

I say it does, but for different reasons. When a reader buys a book from a physical bookstore, s/he can pick it up, flip through the pages, and judge by the thickness of the book, the size of the print, and the amount of white space on the pages how long this book will take to read – or more importantly, how good an entertainment (or informational) value the book is for the asking price.

The reader has no way of telling this for ebooks, unless the online retailer or publisher includes it in the book’s product description. Often, a reader shops with a goal in mind – not necessarily of a specific book, but for something to read while waiting at the kids’ sports practice, or while walking on the treadmill, on vacation, etc. – and might want a story to fit the amount of time available to read. If the reader was expecting a novella she could read in an hour, only to find when the hour’s up that she’s only halfway through it, that could be a bit jarring. Or worse, when the reader’s looking to be entertained during a long flight, only to have the story run out halfway through it, with nothing new to read and no wifi/cell connection with which to download something else.

The main situation where this is a problem is when the reader feels s/he hasn’t gotten a good value for his/her money – for example, many readers consider $2.99 a fair price for a novella, but would feel ripped off if they expected a full novel or novella, only to get a short story a fraction. In fact, I’ve read of many an ebook author getting dinged with 1-star reviews for this very reason – the reader expected a full novel, but got a novella. Sadly, in some cases, this was clearly spelled out in the book’s description, and either the reader failed to notice, or didn’t even read the description. In other cases, it wasn’t noted – and IMO the reader is justified for feeling cheated.

So what do you think – does size matter with ebooks? Or does it only matter in relation to price and value? I normally prefer longer books, but lately I’ve been enjoying some darned good novellas while on the treadmill. What about you?

Good Stories: “Promises,” by Sheri McGathy

by Jennette,

Promises coverI’ll admit it, I’m not a big fan of short stories, and I probably wouldn’t have picked it up if not for the fact that (disclosure) Sheri McGathy is my cousin. Or maybe I would have, if I saw past the length and read the book description:

Shay, a Blade Whisperer, has made a promise. A promise she is determined to keep, no matter the consequences or the pain that promise might cause. She has searched long, following the countless whispers of forgotten blades, until one quiet whisper reveals the blade she seeks. And now that she’s found the bewitched dagger, she must fulfill her promise to set her lover free…by killing him.

Kill her lover to keep her promise to him? I’m so there! A buck-fifty on Smashwords, and “Promises” is on my netbook, ready to keep me from getting bored on the treadmill.

Probably the main reason I’m not big on short stories is because I prefer longer works, that can pull me into a complex plot with well-drawn characters I have plenty of time to get to know and love. So often, there just isn’t room in a short story to dig deep enough, and the conflicts stay small out of necessity to fit the length. Worldbuilding is often sparse.

“Promises” proved to be a great exception. Although there isn’t room to really plumb the depths of the main character, a swordswoman named Shay, we do get a full sense of her motivation and what compels her to go places, and do things, few women would in her world. Her emotions are well-drawn, and we quickly care about her and want to see her succeed, while making a terrible choice. McGathy excels at worldbuilding – despite the short space, the reader can easily get a picture of her world that’s torn apart by magic and continues to decay. Background information is dropped into the story in small bits, just enough to build on that picture and enhance the experience.

Best of all, the conflict, while simple, is not small (see story description), and the end ties in nicely with the worldbuilding, its background, and Shay’s past.

As a bonus, the ebook download includes another short story: “The Gift,” a very short (almost flash fiction), sleeping-beauty-esque tale.

So if you’re looking for something to occupy twenty minutes or so, and you enjoy a good fantasy story, check out “Promises,” available on Smashwords and B&N, and coming to Amazon’s Kindle soon.

Do you like short stories, or do you prefer longer works? I read mostly romance novels, but when it comes to shorts, I find the format works better – for me, at least – for fantasy, mainstream, or crime fic. Do you enjoy reading some genres more than others in short form? And would you recommend any specific stories for my next workout?