Update, Quiz and Teaser

TWO CHAPTERS today. These chapters are just teasers. Their real purpose is to keep me focused on writing progress.

Beta readers will be up to the half way point of Book 6, Inside Straight, later today. I’ve hit a bit of a difficult section and I’m interested to see what they make of it…

Other stuff

Among the Stars – I have broken Amazon support. They finally acknowledge that they allow other series to have the series title as part of the book names, but that mine has still been disallowed. They don’t know why. They have transferred me to ‘Tech Support’, which, from the way they refer to it, is situated on another planet entirely. Tech Support have failed to communicate with me at all. At this point, it’s sheer bloody-mindedness that keeps me going. The lack of a series name makes it extremely difficult to promote the second book. This has gone on so long that A Threat Among the Stars has basically failed – sales are very poor. I may try to revive it, but at this point, it’s all wasted effort.

Okay QUIZ TIME…

This will be very easy for some, especially those who live in Denver, or who’ve followed my posts for three years…
Winners of previous quizzes can of course send me a message, but are not allowed to take part publicly 🙂

What’s the building in the picture and what special significance does it have?

Prize: In Book 7: Either name a new character, or demand the return of a previous character to a significant role…

Previous teaser chapters (in order) are at:
https://henwick.wordpress.com/2018/12/24/christmas-wishes-and-bite-back-6-teaser-chapter/
https://henwick.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/bite-back-6-teaser-chapter-2/
https://henwick.wordpress.com/2019/02/28/update-and-question-for-you-and-a-chapter-teaser-from-inside-straight/
https://henwick.wordpress.com/2019/03/31/march-update-quiz-question-and-a-teaser-of-chapter-4-from-inside-straight/

= = = = = = = = =

Chapter 5

 

I had the absolute right to her Blood now and Amanda wanted mine, but her eukori was also linked tightly to her older kin, Scott, and I got the sense it might be the only thing that was keeping him alive.

I took a deep breath. I was the one trembling now.

“I guess…” I had to clear my throat and force my fangs to stay put by willpower. “I guess we have some other business to deal with first.”

“Yes. Scott,” Amanda said. “Please. He really doesn’t have much time. I’m sorry.”

Riding on Amanda’s connection, I mentally reached out to him and sensed his heartbeat, the flow of his Blood, the weak pulse of life throughout his body.

I was no healer like Bian, but I believed Amanda. He was slipping away. If she was determined to try this, I had to infuse Scott right now. Waiting for Diana or Bian to help would take too long.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” I said. It was crazy, but I had to attempt it. My oath bound me to Amanda as tightly as it bound her to me, and she needed me to try and save him.

Linked with me through eukori, Pia sensed my decision.

“I’ll guide you,” Pia said. She was the one of us that had real experience infusing humans to set off the change that would result in them becoming Athanate. On the other hand, we were going to throw out every tried and tested procedure she’d used in House Altau and rely on a blind roll of the dice.

We cleared the area around the sofa and I knelt down beside it.

Yelena tore Scott’s shirt away from his neck. “You have very pretty kin,” she murmured to Amanda, who gave a small smile in response. She clutched one of Scott’s hands.

Pia knelt at his head and put a hand on my shoulder.

I was a confused whirl of emotion inside. After getting so aroused at the thought of biting Amanda, I was still hungry for Blood. I had no idea what to do to infuse, and even more importantly, no idea of what would happen to Scott—who was now one of my House.

What if I killed him?

“Take it easy,” whispered Pia. “Just bite first.”

I licked his neck. The pulse was faint and erratic, but it still called to me.

Amanda’s scent filled my nose, overlaid with Scott’s own.

Despite my fears, my fangs burst from my jaw with such sweet anticipation that I groaned.

I sank my fangs into his neck, and the pleasure burned through me as I pulled on his Blood, sending it coursing down the taryma, the network of Athanate channels in my throat.

Even with my senses blurred with pleasure, I could feel my glands releasing bio-agents, flooding back through the taryma and out of my fangs. Nothing yet to do with changing him to Athanate, just a reflex to claim him for my House.

Pia began to stroke my back, calling my attention to her.

Eukori communicates sensations and emotions. It wasn’t easy for Pia to communicate clearly how my Athanate glands were supposed to produce the right bio-agents for infusion. Not even the Athanate had words that described what I needed to do in a way that told me how to do it. But generations of Athanates had learned by being guided through eukori, and that was how we were doing it too.

Pia’s sensations and memories flooded into me. It was like walking down a long, echoing corridor. Each sensation carried a shadow impression: another person’s memory, which in turn was overlaid by another, fainter memory, and another, all eventually fading away into whispering and darkness. All of them tried to guide me, evoking a state that my body could interpret and act on.

Sensation poured in.

I tasted unfamiliar flavors in my mouth, images, a deep stirring in my chest, cool breezes in the morning, doves flying up into clear blue skies, pale green shoots rising from ashes, a clockwork spring slowly tightening, feelings I had no words for battered me.

Was it the right response? The right bio-agents? The right strength?

“That’s good,” Pia said quietly in my ear. “Relax. You won’t harm him. He’s part of your House.”

I felt more bio-agents flooding exquisitely through my fangs.

Whatever it was I was doing, it was as pleasurable as taking Blood.

“Gently, gently.” Pia kept saying. She and Amanda were syncing with me, anchoring me to my task, keeping the sensations from sweeping me away.

In a minute or two, we could feel Scott’s reaction as well, as the infusion slithered through his body, reaching everywhere, seeping into his heart, his liver, his brain.

He went into shock; his heart failed and violent shudders ripped through his body, dislodging my fangs from his neck.

Amanda frantically supported him through her connection with his body, forcing his heart to work again.

Yelena joined us, sharing the load.

It was like teetering on a high wire suspended over a crevasse. One moment we leaned too far one way, the next, the other.

I felt the Adepts get tied in through their connection with Amanda. They were blind about what needed to be done, but they brought raw strength, freely given, that Amanda could use.

“Steady. Calm.” Pia’s trembling voice were in contrast to her words, but we steadied. Slowly, we steadied.

And Scott’s reactions subsided. His heart re-started on its own, even if it was beating erratically.

At Pia’s insistence, I bit him again. His throat was bloody and without Pia’s help I wouldn’t have been able to focus. Together, we were more careful now; bio-agents trickled into his body, spaced out with long pauses.

I lost sense of time.

Gradually, his immune defenses were turned into allies, until finally, his body was tricked into treating the bio-agents as part of itself and to stop fighting. Changes rippled through him, each small, but building on the previous.

An hour, maybe two. I was aware distantly that my knees hurt, but it felt as if I were floating in a pool until eventually, Pia whispered: “Enough.”

My fangs retracted. I carefully licked his neck clean, sealing his wounds before resting my head on his chest. I could hear the weak but steady thump of his heart. His flesh was hot to the touch.

There was a feel about him. Too subtle to pinpoint, but we’d started with a dying human kin and at some stage, although he was no longer fully human, neither did he seem so close to dying.

“Did it work?” I asked.

“Far too early to tell,” Pia said. “His body went right to the edge of death. It’s now definitely undergoing the fundamental change of crusis… but…”

An ordinary Athanate, an Aspirant, fit, healthy and well-prepared by his mentors, might spend weeks or months in crusis. Scott hadn’t been ready in any sense. He hadn’t been healthy. He hadn’t been prepared. No one knew what my infusion would do, even if he had been prepared. Scott might die from the crusis, whether or not my infusion was quicker and less dangerous. Or he might turn into a hybrid Athanate-Were. Or a plain werewolf.

We couldn’t tell.

“Thank you,” Amanda said. Her eyes were red, and she still held his hand.

I was going to tell her to thank me when it worked, but I bit down on the words before they emerged. She knew.

“He’s probably going to sleep for a day after that, and you should stay with him,” Pia said to Amanda. “If you need someone to help, or take over for a while, I’ll be somewhere in the house, no more than a minute away.”

Amanda smiled faintly in thanks.

I’d withdrawn my eukori a bit, but I could still feel the warmth of Pia’s offer, and a similarly warm acceptance of Amanda from Yelena.

From Amanda, I got just a sense of bone-deep exhaustion and gratitude.

Understanding a little of what she must have gone through during the drive down here blunted my immediate desire for her Blood. I was content that her neck could wait a while.

In fact, I felt better than content.

New members for my House. A possible first infusion.

I wanted to ride this sudden feeling of elation.

Bring on anything. I can handle it.

I got Pia to move Scott to a bedroom and told Amanda I wanted her to sleep for a day.

Which meant I needed to keep her other kin out of her hair.

“So,” I hissed amiably at the new Adepts members of my House, backing them into a corner in the main lounge. “What exactly do you boys think is happening in the Denver Adept community?”

I’d noticed something all day without being able to recognize it until they mentioned the sensation. It’d been there in the restlessness at Haven. In the hairs standing on the back of my neck as Keith drove me back. That itchy feeling. Someone looking over my shoulder, as Kane had put it.

It was the same feeling I’d had down in Albuquerque, when Chatima had called Tullah and me to visit her, from miles away, using her strong Adept powers.

“Don’t know it’s Denver’s community,” Kane said.

“Doesn’t feel right for Denver,” Flint agreed.

“You can tell?”

Flint shrugged. “It’s northern style. Modern. Not what we expected here.”

They could tell the difference between modern and traditional workings? Northern and southern? I put that away to investigate later.

“So someone followed you down?”

Kane shook his head. “Not followed. We’d have felt them. This is like… they flew here. Got ahead of us.”

“On a magic carpet?” Yelena said, leaning on my shoulder and raking the guys over with her eyes.

Kane snorted. “Delta, more like.”

“Which leads to the question, how did they know where to come?” I looked at Yelena. “Tracker on the car?”

“No,” Yelena said. “Is checked.”

“Then I think we’ll go ask. You boys can do magical direction finding, can’t you?”

 

Chapter 6

“Is stupid.”

Yelena’s blunt assessment of my plan to confront the group of Adepts who were so interested in us seemed to gather weight as she pulled over and stopped the car at Kane’s quiet request.

It had taken an hour of driving around, and we were in Denver’s RiNo area – River North.

People said that RiNo was Denver’s next big up-and-coming area, as the rebuilding in LoDo came to an end. It was being marketed as the ‘Art District’ by the developers. I thought of it as the bit between the Coors Field ball park and the Blue Moon brewery, nestling in the armpit made by the intersection of I-25 and I-70. It used to be a lot of dust, scruff and old warehouses with the South Platt River and the railway yards running through it.

I had to admit, things had moved since I’d last been this way. Long, low commercial buildings had pushed out the scruff, and pastel-colored apartment blocks had sprung up like mushrooms.

Snow was blowing in from the north west, and streamers of it slithered down from the tops of buildings, waving like white silk ribbons in the wind.

Yelena raised an eyebrow at Kane for further clarification, but it was Flint who spoke.

“Somewhere here,” he said, waving a hand to indicate the block. “Probably easier to walk now.”

Yelena’s downturned mouth told me what she thought of wandering around in the snow without a solid direction.

My itchy sense had gotten stronger in RiNo, but I was unable to tell anything about directions.

“What exactly are you sensing?” I asked. “How strong?”

“Comes and goes,” Kane replied. “Two or three of them? Fading in and out, like they keep being distracted.”

Tullah’s mother, Mary, had once told me sensing magic energy was like being on a huge trampoline. You could feel other users around you, especially powerful users. You might feel roughly where they were. Two or three, fading in and out, didn’t sound that dangerous.

Maybe if I still had Hana, my wolf spirit guide, I’d feel more. But she had gone, along with Tara.

Yet another thing I had to follow up, in my supposed quiet Christmas break—what had happened to me back in that fight against the Taos Adepts in New Mexico. What had caused Tara, my stillborn twin sister’s spirit, and Hana, my wolf spirit guide, to leave me?

Tullah and Kaothos had to be able to tell me, surely? Or Mary, Tullah’s mother.

The buzz I’d felt back at Manassah after infusing Scott had leaked away, leaving me down.

I couldn’t let any of that distract me at the moment. I had a job to do and Yelena was looking at me for the go-ahead.

Flint and Kane seemed tense, but not overly concerned, so I nodded and we got out.

The car doors closing sounded very loud. It was quiet, even given that it was Christmas Eve. There was no one else on this road. No moving cars, no pedestrians. Strange.

We were parked in front of a new building which advertised itself as Schown Apartments – A community of UPSCALE comfortable homes – HURRY! –  LAST FEW still available.

Popular or not, with its hi-tech aluminium columns and bold glass front, the Schown building looked as if it was designed for summer. It gave the impression it didn’t like the snow much.

Kane and Flint turned left and walked slowly.

Yelena and I followed for about fifteen paces before I felt something change, as if my itch suddenly became a prickling over all my skin.

I looked back.

A shroud of snow billowed around the Schown building, so all that was visible was the gleaming top of the facade. The entrance, the pavement and our car had disappeared in a fine white mist.

Darkness moved where the pavement was, floating like a mirage, then resolving into a figure walking toward us.

A woman. Pale. Hair like ice. Even at this distance I could tell she had startling blue eyes. She was dressed in black, with an open leather duster and thin gloves, entirely unsuitable for the weather.

“Oh—” Kane started.

“Crap,” Flint finished.

There was a feeling in my head like I was breathing in cold smoke. The Adept version of eukori. I clamped down, imagining shiny metal shields around my head. The soft awareness of Yelena and my two Adepts behind me chopped off abruptly.

The woman walked like Rita, the were-cougar, did—all slink and dangerous purpose. She came to a stop in front of me.

“Amber Farrell, House Farrell, I believe.” Her voice was sharp, cutting the sentences up into isolated, breathy puffs. “I am Gwendolyn Enkeliekki, Hecate of the North.”

“Alias Wendy Witch,” Kane muttered. “Leader of the Michigan and Ontario Adepts.”

Her cold lips stretched. I couldn’t call it a smile exactly, but if she was upset by the nickname, she gave no hint. Her eyes never left mine. Their blue was so deep and sharp, like cold fire. Electric neon.

“Pleased to meet you…” I said. Hecate? A title of some kind. I wasn’t even going to try her surname. “Gwendolyn? Call me Amber.”

The prickling intensified.

I was aware of Yelena beside me, balancing on the balls of her feet. Flint and Kane pressing forward as if to protect me. The wind buffeting all of us, wrapping us in a whirl of snow, isolating us in a white vortex until it seemed as if the whole world was nothing but the five of us.

The Hecate had turned up the collar of her duster, her only concession to the cold. It flapped against her cheek, like a captive bird’s wing.

Her lips curved up. That was a smile.

Hairs stood up on the back of my neck.

“Shit—” That was Kane.

My thoughts exactly. She was doing something. I reached out, but tripped.

We all tripped, and fell into the icy heart of a blizzard.

 

 

Advertisements

Bite Back 6 teaser chapter 2

Here’s chapter 2 of Inside Straight.

I’m NOT intending to publish this book all on the blog, and it’s structured as a novel rather than episode-ending-on-cliffhanger, so you should regard these chapters as teasers. It’s just intended to keep the blog ticking over with a chapter a month, and I sincerely hope to be publishing before we even get to the quarter point.

You will note in these chapters that there are references to what happened in the novellas: The Biting Cold, Winter’s Kiss and also Change of Regime. These novellas are part of the overall Bite Back story from different viewpoints and take place chronologically at the end of Angel Stakes and beginning of Inside Straight. TBC and WK are set in Michigan, CoR is set in New York.

What else?

As I’ve posted on Facebook, the publication of A Threat Among the Stars has been a disaster, for whatever reason. I’ve relied too much on word of mouth perhaps, and I need to get much more serious about advertising on Amazon, Facebook, Bookbub etc.

Anyway, first priority is to get Inside Straight completed.

Chapter 1 is at

https://henwick.wordpress.com/2018/12/24/christmas-wishes-and-bite-back-6-teaser-chapter/

 

 

Chapter 2

 

There was, and the distraction was welcome.

It was Mykayla. A few months ago, she’d been a happy-go-lucky Denver girl who liked raves, and had a crush on me and Bian, not in that order. Now she was Bian’s kin, and an Aspirant—a human training to become Athanate. Diana had chosen Mykayla as the first person she wanted me to infuse, to test out whether my infusion would actually reduce crusis, or turn people into hybrids. Or something else entirely. It might even kill.

Mykayla, crazy girl, had actually volunteered.

She was training this morning: Aspirants go through a vigorous physical program, so that when their time comes to be infused, they’re at the very peak of condition. It helps with the dangers of crusis.

What state would House Lloyd’s dying kin be in? What if…

I pushed the thoughts away and concentrated on Mykayla.

I hadn’t been monitoring her progress while I was away in LA, so I was surprized by the change. Her exercises on the training mats and the sleek look of her body impressed me. Let alone the dedication to get up this early to work out.

She wasn’t alone. Haven was busy, even the gym, even at this hour.

Colonel Laine had recruited soldiers from our old battalion, Ops 4-10, after the whole Ops 4 group was disbanded. They’d started out based in Wyoming, but as of a few weeks ago, Haven was their HQ. They were working directly for House Altau now and they were taking their new role as seriously as I would expect from former Ops 4-10 personnel. It wasn’t just people in the gym at strange hours, there was a new multi-channel comms system covered the area, patrols 24/7 with staggered shifts, biometric monitoring of active personnel and surveillance of the locality across the spectrum.

I could see they were just begging Basilikos to try attacking Haven.

It was intended that small teams of former Ops 4-10 would be sent from here to just about every House in North America. Skylur had declared that North America was his territory and he intended to strengthen his sub-Houses so that there was no weak point for Basilikos to exploit.

Colonel Laine looked to have that objective all in hand.

Keith had wandered off to find breakfast and any familiar faces from Ops 4-10, leaving me alone when the training ended.

Mykayla came bounding over.

“Hi, Amber!”

We hugged.

“Hi yourself. You’re looking good, girl.”

“Yup! I’m ready.”

I didn’t need to ask what she meant she was ready for. The girl wanted to start the process of transformation by being infused by me.

“You’re ready when Bian says you’re ready,” I said and sat back down on the bench.

“Come on! Tell me I’m not in top condition,” she insisted. Her face got a little sly look to it. “Get a load of these abs.”

She opened her gi and lifted her sweaty shirt.

Yeah, great abs, and an entirely intentional opportunity to appreciate the cutest little pink-nosed puppies too.

I snorted and grabbed her by her canvas training pants, lifting her up as she squealed and depositing her next to me on the bench.

I was laughing, and after a little pout, she joined in.

“Bian put you up to that, didn’t she?” I asked.

“Sort of.”

“Either she did or she didn’t. Come on, Mykayla, spill.”

“She bet me. Said if I got you into bed, she’d agree I was ready to be infused.”

I laughed harder and gave her a hug. That was typical Bian, but Mykayla hadn’t quite seen all of it.

“Could have been a double whammy,” she said indistinctly and sighed, her face pressed against my shoulder.

“Congratulations,” I said.

She leaned back and looked up at me suspiciously, as if I were teasing her some more.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Bian might have a horrible sense of humor, but look at it this way: do you think she’s irresponsible?”

Mykayla frowned. “No. Not at all. I don’t understand.”

“Hundred percent responsible?” I prompted her. “Ninety? Eighty?”

“Hundred, of course.”

“So, let’s say you aren’t ready to be infused, but there was a chance, oh, one in ten, say, that we actually ended up in bed. That’d make her only ninety percent responsible, unless…”

Mykayla frowned again before suddenly it dawned on her. “Oh! Unless it didn’t matter. Unless she thinks I am ready, and getting me to try and seduce you was a joke.”

“Congratulations,” I said again.

“Oh, Amber!” she leaped up from the bench and did a handspring followed by cartwheels in a complete circle so she ended up back in front of me.

“Today? Now?” She bounced on her toes.

My fangs were throbbing with anticipation, which was distracting, but I managed a shaky laugh. No matter how eager my Athanate was to infuse someone, I needed help to go through the process, and I wasn’t in any hurry. No one knew what would happen when I infused someone.

The thought of it scared me.

“When Bian sets it up,” I told her, and sent her off to shower.

She disappeared, and on cue, Bian came into the gym, her brow furrowed.

I leaped up from the bench.

“What’s up, Pussycat?”

She gave me a distracted cuddle.

“Skylur says it’s all our call, Round-eye: granting House Lloyd sanctuary, infusing her kin, the whole thing.”

“What? But we wait for Diana at least before trying that infusion, yes?”

I really didn’t want to try this without my Mentor, Diana. Using eukori, she could guide me through infusing Scott and Mykayla. Diana was the Kumemnon, the eldest living Athanate. If anyone had a chance of ensuring things didn’t go wrong, it was her.

“Maybe not,” Bian said and sighed. “That’s part of what’s so worrying. There’s been a change of plans. Diana’s still on the way with Alice in the van but I’ve got no way to contact them because Skylur’s already in New York. The situation there is more urgent than originally thought.”

“How so?”

“Apparently, there’s a large group of diazoun Houses who’ve been hiding out in Long Island.”

I frowned. New York state had been the territory of the Warders, prior to their dissolution at the last Assembly. The Warders had claimed their domain as independent, while secretly cooperating with Basilikos.

A strong and secure Athanate House might decide to allow one diazoun House to sit on its borders. Two, if they were very quiet and respectful. But a ‘large group’ of Houses?

“The Warders let them?” I asked.

Bian snorted. “Not really. Apparently, the Warders just didn’t have a clue what was going on. Naryn stopped there on the way to his new domain in Boston, and the leaders of the diazoun presented themselves to him, figuring they’d never get away with hiding in Skylur’s territory.”

“They got that right. Well, I guess they all give him their oaths or go to Ireland. Simple. Isn’t it?”

The Irish Athanate had declared themselves independent from all Athanate politics and Ireland itself was open to any as a refuge.

Bian wrinkled her nose. “If it’s so straightforward, then why is it urgent for Skylur to go there rather than making sure Diana gets here safely?”

Good point.

“Skylur didn’t explain?”

Stupid question. Bian snorted.

“On the other hand, he did mention a bit of background,” she said. “It was your supplicant, House Lloyd, that started the process which ended with House Prowser finding out the location of the slave auction in LA.”

That rocked me. If that was true, why hadn’t it come up in the telephone call with Amanda Lloyd? I owed her. She had to know that, and yet she hadn’t tried to cash it in.

I searched my memory. “When Prowser spoke to me in LA, she talked about a sub-House and a court case or something…”

“Yeah. That’s the one. Anyway, the good news for you, I think, is that House Prowser has given up any claim to House Lloyd as a sub-House and waived her rights to Blood payment or feud with you.”

I swallowed. Athanate politics was prickly, and frankly, given my own response to thinking of someone taking any of my House away, I could understand why.

So why would Prowser give up part of hers?

Maybe I’d got lucky. Maybe I hadn’t.

“You’re not sure it’s good news?” I asked.

“You mean why did she do it?” Bian smiled. It was an evil sort of smile. “Maybe she knows something about House Lloyd that we don’t?”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re paranoid, Pussycat?”

“Yeah, lots of people, but they’re all dead, because they didn’t see it coming.”

 

Zara – A Name Among The Stars – SciFi Adv/Rom – Episode 11

3k words in this episode + lots of feels.

47k words in total so far.

I’m having a sketch made of Zara, which I hope to post next week, but in terms of progress, I am singularly failing to get ahead of the story, despite planning to be ready to publish when I reach the 3/4 point.

On minor notes, I’ve seen that having ‘standardized’ on metric measurements, I’ve broken the rule and used imperial for the height of people. I could argue it either way I guess. Zara is 172cm, but I’m old-fashioned enough to feel much more comfortable saying five-eight. I also have used Welarvor and Welarvon as the name of the coast.

Where did we leave it last time? Zara feeling neither ‘on’ the team, not exactly dismissed from it. What will she do? What will the conspirators on Newyan do? Is Esterhauze too good to be true? Did the Duchess really commit suicide? What will Rhoswyn think about having Dancing Mistresses around for the summer? Can the young lady be ‘civilized’ in time for the Summer Ball? And what will Zara wear?

Feedback welcome. The beginning of summer has seen a dip in vistors to the blog site, but there are loads of readers who haven’t said anything yet…

++++++++++++++++

I have had to remove the episodes I posted here to fall into line with Amazon’s policies on Kindle Unlimited books.

The full novel is available on Amazon:

USA https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076WZBFVJ

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076WZBFVJ

Germany https://www.amazon.de/dp/B076WZBFVJ

When I post stories on my blog, they will remain for at least a month after completion.

Zara – A Name Among The Stars – SciFi Adv/Rom – Episode 10

Gosh, that week rushed by and another episode is due…

This episode feels as if it will need more polishing. What do you think?

 

Thanks! Enjoy!

+++++++++++++++++

I have had to remove the episodes I posted here to fall into line with Amazon’s policies on Kindle Unlimited books.

The full novel is available on Amazon:

USA https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076WZBFVJ

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076WZBFVJ

Germany https://www.amazon.de/dp/B076WZBFVJ

When I post stories on my blog, they will remain for at least a month after completion.

Zara – A Name Among The Stars – SciFi Adv/Rom – Episode 9

I’m away this weekend, so this episode is early and on the short side (3k words).

A couple of you have mentioned that the descriptions aren’t quite enough to give you a good picture in your heads of the characters. This is something that I will fix in the ‘polishing’ before I publish the book.

In the meantime, at least for Zara, the best images I can come up with need a bit of work. Google some images of Alejandro Alonso. Her hair colour varies, but you’ll see some with black. Zara’s ethnicity is Spanish (Basque) and Chinese. Her face is quite similar to Alejandro. Her eyes are green like Alejandro’s but tilt slightly more. Zara’s lips aren’t quite as full. Her hair is thick, black and straight. At the time of this novel, it’s cut short as a boy’s.

 

Comments & questions welcome as ever.

+++++++

I have had to remove the episodes I posted here to fall into line with Amazon’s policies on Kindle Unlimited books.

The full novel is available on Amazon:

USA https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076WZBFVJ

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076WZBFVJ

Germany https://www.amazon.de/dp/B076WZBFVJ

When I post stories on my blog, they will remain for at least a month after completion.

Zara – A Name Among The Stars – SciFi Adv/Rom – Episode 8

Episode 8

There is no Dancing Mistress job, and what’s worse is the Shohwa’s AI has left behind a copy of itself on the local servers. The Shohwa thinks Duke Tremayne and his family face the same attacks as Zara’s in Newyan.

Short epsiode this week (3k words). We’re at about 37k words total.

I’ve had to rush to get onto the new schedule, which will be an episode every Friday (late evening here in the UK, during the day in the US). An episode seems to be about 2 chapters. That said, tonight’s *should* have been 3.

Thank you for the comments and questions generated last time. All very welcome. More please. 🙂

I will post the discussion about the Cornish names as a comment.

 

+++++++++++++

I have had to remove the episodes I posted here to fall into line with Amazon’s policies on Kindle Unlimited books.

The full novel is available on Amazon:

USA https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076WZBFVJ

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076WZBFVJ

Germany https://www.amazon.de/dp/B076WZBFVJ

When I post stories on my blog, they will remain for at least a month after completion.

Zara – A Name Among The Stars – SciFi Adv/Rom – Episode 7

We left Zara having a stand-up, screaming argument with Gaude, the manager of Duke Tremayne’s estate. Gaude’s just told her that there is no job for her as Dancing Mistress at the estate, and then goes on to accuse her of carrying fake ID!

What’s she to do? Is there another job she might apply for? Will she be able to get the charges against her dropped? What if they find out her real history? (Dramatic music)

Long epsiode this week (7k words). We’re at about 32k words total, so around 1/3 of the way through!

Thank you for the comments and questions generated last time. All very welcome. Comments and questions and speculation will be welcome again this time. 🙂

I too have question: what frequency and amount would you prefer? What you’re getting at the moment is a weekly episode which gets written basically on Friday evening & Saturday morning. I could make episodes twice as long, but then they’d be every other weekend…
Also, which day is best? (Friday seems very popular! I would need to get an episode ahead.)

Thanks! Enjoy!

++++++++++

 

I have had to remove the episodes I posted here to fall into line with Amazon’s policies on Kindle Unlimited books.

The full novel is available on Amazon:

USA https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076WZBFVJ

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076WZBFVJ

Germany https://www.amazon.de/dp/B076WZBFVJ

When I post stories on my blog, they will remain for at least a month after completion.