Welcome the Magic...and discover something new
Welcome the Magic...and discover something new
Read on for news, free books, free video games, travel photos and more!
Note: read to the end to see some cool travel shots from my trip to Europe! I know this newsletter got a bit long…I just have a lot to share with you!
Shop Local this Holiday Season!
As you do your shopping, no matter what books you buy for your loved ones or yourself (and obviously you’re gifting books, right?!), I want to encourage you to shop at your local indie bookstore. Bookstores are the lifeblood of a community, a safe place, a resource. And after the pandemic, economic turmoil and more, they need us now more than ever.
If you don’t have a local indie bookstore, or if you’d like to help one out that is doing good work in my rural community, I would love if you’d make a special effort to support Adventure Bound Books in Morganton, NC. Not only do they have signed copies of any of my books, they also work tirelessly to create a community that is desperately needed for our area, especially for LGBTQ+ youth.
You don’t have to live here to support them. You can buy any book online and help them survive this tough economy and continue doing the work that’s important.
Available Now: Museum of Magic paperback and ebook!
From the New York Times bestselling author of multiple fantasy and science fiction novels, this new adventure is the perfect blend of history, fairy lore, and will-they-or-won't-they tension!
I’m so happy to announce that, just in time for the holidays, Museum of Magic is now available for sale in both ebook and paperback! And the sequel, House of Hex, is launching next week in serialized form!
By now, I’m sure you’ve heard me talk on and on about how Museum was written through dice throws and reader votes. I hope you know that the community that’s arisen around the book is so much fun. Whether you’ve joined me on Kindle Vella or Patreon, thank you for being a part of the journey!
And if you’ve wanted to check the story out but have been hesitant to dive in after it started, let me say that now is the best time to catch up! Grab Museum now and binge it (it’s fun and short!) so that you can start reading the sequel in serialized form starting next week—and then you, too, can join in on the voting and theorizing!
Interested in seeing behind the scenes? Check out this free post on how I edited the first book with an eye toward developing an unplottable sequel.
Grab the paperback from Adventure Bound Books! If it doesn’t show up on the website, just shoot the bookstore an email. This is the only way to get signed copies!
Get the paperback from Amazon—coming soon to other retailers
Read in serialized form on Patreon—you’ll get free ebook copies of all my serial novels plus get to vote along as the sequel is developed. The full ebook of Museum of Magic is going to be uploaded for all Patreons on Sunday!
Catch up on Museum of Magic now—the sequel, House of Hex, is starting soon, and you don’t want to miss launching into the fun!
Calling All Bookstagrammers!
Once Upon a Time Tours is hosting Museum of Magic for an Instagram tour! If you do any sort of bookstagramming, you’re welcome to apply for this new tour company and this tour! This is open internationally, and you can find out more details and sign up here.
Also, are you on TikTok? I’ve got a few extra influencer boxes! Want one? Check it out here!
Join me in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Style Videogame!
I mentioned the closed beta for Storyloom last month, but now it’s in open beta—meaning you don’t need to wait to check out the game. All you need to have is a Google account to log onto the website, and you have access to all the games Storyloom has on offer!
Of course, I hope you check out my twisty horror story, Ghost in the Machine. It’s a fun story about Nadine, an aspiring special effects artist who wants to work in horror films. She’s currently a barista, so, you know, that plan’s been going well. But then she learns that the new girl hired at the coffeeshop used to have ties for a huge YouTuber…who may be literally haunted…and things go downhill from there.
You can read Ghost in the Machine right now for free. The final chapter is releasing soon, and it will have five different possible endings to it. Remember those fun Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books where you got to stick your finger in a page and peek if your choice would lead you to an untimely demise? Well, with this story, you click choices and see what happens…because at least one option is definitely gonna be the “everyone’s dead” option, ha! But there are multiple paths and multiple possibilities to this ending!
If you like the concept, I also want to encourage you to check out other titles on the platform! Playing the stories is a lot of fun (and they may be perfect for a reluctant reader in your life…)
There are a ton of great stories already on the site, and it’s growing every day. I recommend:
His Forbidden Prince by MK England—star-crossed lovers!
Growing Pains by Rosiee Thor—sweet farm life + murder!
Queen by Night by Jessica Khoury—palace intrigue!
Stolen Dream by Jessica Burkhart—horse racing + romance!
House of Never by Parker Peevyhouse—twisty paranormal mystery!
And because you may have to log in before getting to my story—here’s a direct link back to Ghost in the Machine if you need it.
Do remember: Storyloom is still technically in beta. There may be a few bugs, but the team behind the program is fantastic, and this is truly a fun way to read a new story. Give it a try!
The Grand European Vacation Research Trip
I have so many pictures and adventures to share from my recent trip! I ended up posting mostly over on my Instagram, but…I took a lot of photos!
Of course, it’s not always possible to travel. Sara and I wrote the entirety of the first draft of Night of the Witch without either of us ever having been to Trier, which is the main setting.
But going to a place—the whole experience of travel, truthfully—changes a person.
The first day—literally only a few hours after landing in Paris—I struck off on my own to go to the French Ossuary (better known as the Catacombs of Paris). I had seen pictures (and the movie As Above, which I loved), but I’ve never been there. I expected some things—the darkness, the dampness, the claustrophobia, the echoes in the tunnels.
I didn’t think of the smell.
That was something I couldn’t research. I had to experience to know it. I had to go there to even know it was a detail that I could experience. And even after all that, I’m trying to figure out how to describe the mix of petrichor, bone dust, and age.
For me, the highlight and most important part of the trip was Trier, Germany, the setting for Night of the Witch. Sara and I did extensive research on both the history and geography of the oldest city in Germany, but being there?
Surreal.
The city was encased in fog in the morning, making it all feel even more fairy tale like. Much like the bone dust in the Paris Catacombs, the misty, dense fog is an experience I’m going to have to find a way to include in a book. Also, that bridge? Built by the Romans, older than colonized America, and still in use today.
This is the city square of Trier, the place with the east-west road crossed with the north-south road built by the Roman conquerers. Remember, Germany was once the Holy Roman Empire, and the Rome part of it was very literal—there are traces of Rome everywhere.
A common saying when comparing Europe and America is that, to Americans, two-hundred miles is nothing and two-hundred years is forever, but in Europe, the exact opposite is true. Most of the houses you’re seeing here are original medieval structures.
Including this apothecary, which is the oldest apothecary in German, built in the 1200s, and featured in Night of the Witch.
What was most fascinating to me on a research level was walking the paths Sara and my characters walked. We looked up these paths on Google Street View, we meticulously trawled through blogs and photos to reconstruct the idea of the streets, we scrutinized maps. But while I know it’s only about 400 meters to walk from Löwen Apotheke to the Porta Nigra, actually walking it was a totally different level of understanding.
Speaking of the Porta Nigra, here she is! Porta Nigra is “Black Gate” in Latin, the only remaining of four original Roman gates around the city. It was stunning to see it in real life, to truly develop a sense of place and awe of this structure that is literally millenia old.
Of course, in the late 1500s, when Night of the Witch takes place, the Porta Nigra did not look like this. It had been converted into a church, and likely looked like this:
This is the structure that our characters know and see, built up around the Roman structure. But they used the Roman parts of the building as well, and what I didn’t know was that I would be allowed to climb the stairs and enter this building, touch the stone carved by Romans and lived in by a literal saint.
But that is a story for another day ;)
What I’m working on now…
House of Hex, a YA fantasy with witches and witch bottles, sequel to Museum of Magic. Available on Patreon and Kindle Vella.
Secret adult science fiction project: complete draft, going on sub soon.
Adult historical novel: still on sub.
Night of the Witch: Entirely done, will be on sale Fall 2023.
YA ghost story: Still trying to find the right opening. Yes, still.
Ghost in the Machine: Playable story video game—like an online choose-your-own adventure story. The final chapters will be released this month with five alternate endings to explore!
Side gigs!
Weekly posts and videos about writing at Patreon
SNHU as an online adjunct in the MFA writing program
Accepting critique and coaching jobs with Wordsmith Workshops—in addition to doing Word Lab! Also, we’re starting live and in person retreats again!
Actively doing in-person school, library, and book fair events—book me for panels, signings, and workshops for both adults and teens on writing! If you’d like to get an idea of some of the programming I do, I describe it a bit here.
ALL THE THINGS! Happy December!!
The amount of projects and gigs you juggle is mind blowing to me. Good luck with everything! 🖤