I’m excited to reveal the cover of my new book, Time and Blood! The ebook is available for pre-order now, and both ebook and print version will be available on Oct 31!  My treat for you. The cover was designed by the very talented Marisa-rose Robyn of Cover Me Darling and you will be delighted when you see the interior designed by Cassy Roop of Pink Ink Designs.

The story is a paranormal romance between a phoenix and a vampire. Here is the book’s blurb:

Historians in Atlantis inscribed a prophecy in The Great Book of Forgetting about a pair of phoenix whose union would change the future of all magical creatures. When the sea swallowed Atlantis and all her inhabitants, time forgot the people and this prophecy.

But one creature survived.

Rhea is a scarlet phoenix and the last of her kind. She escaped Atlantis with The Great Book and for over ten thousand years roamed the earth, grieved for her lost immortal beloved, and endured nightmares from her past lives. Today, she hears a familiar voice on the wind luring her to a new place. Rhea follows and hopes for the impossible.

     She crossed millennia to find him. 

Jean-Louis is a 250-year-old vampire in New Orleans. For fifty years, nightmares plagued him, and a violent wind haunted him whispering in a foreign tongue. In his dreams, Jean-Louis sees the face of a woman he knows and aches for but has never met. He feels her approach; however, the vampire senses a connecting malevolence waits in the shadows.

     He risks his immortality to keep her.

An accident will bring Rhea into Jean-Louis’ arms. The shock will give new life to the ancient prophecy. But others whisper of the legendary phoenix and are hunting for Rhea. They must steal The Great Book and prevent any chance of the prophecy’s fulfillment. If they fail, the phoenix must die.

     Together they battle destiny for the future.

Rhea will risk everything for love, even death.

     When time and blood converge, blood must win.

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To celebrate the book’s release, YOU are invited to join me on Facebook for my Release Party. Several authors will be sharing the event with me, doing games and giveaways! These authors are: Robbie Cox, JC Layne, ND Jackson, Kim McDougal, Alyne Hart, HL Girton, MM Koenig, Ashlynne Laynne, and T.A. Mooreman. It’s going to be FUN! I hope to see you there and maybe you’ll get a free copy of the new book!___________________________________________________________________

Have you been following me on Instagram? NO?? Well you should. I don’t post enough to annoy you. And every Monday I post a picture of my pen for the week. It’s #pinyourpen day every Monday. You should join me with pictures of whatever pen you are using that week. Everyone has favorites and I am blessed to have many. So hook up with me on Instagram and let’s see yours. Here is last week’s offering. It is wood hand carved from New Zealand. I love it.

Come out to Instagram or my Facebook page to see what pen I’ve posted today!

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AUTHOR EVENT!  I’m preparing to attend an author signing in Columbia, SC called Authors Invade Columbia. It is the inaugural event and there will be about 100 authors, plus models, designers and bloggers in attendance. If you are anywhere near Columbia, SC, join us on Nov 11 from 10-3pm. Not to be missed. And I will have a monster basket of goodies to raffle off.  Here’s the link for info.  I hope you’ll join us.

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Finally, I love to connect with YOU. That’s why I have a monthly live chat on Facebook called Fireside with the Phoenix. The chats are only 15 minutes and I cover announcements, writing tips, questions from readers and anything else that is relevant to the month. Look for my time and date on my Facebook page. This month’s will be on Oct 28 (my 28th wedding anniversary!) but time isn’t set yet (usually around 11 a.m.). 

Thanks for stopping by. Looking forward to seeing you on Facebook, Instagram or other places. I’m on Twitter and Goodreads too. Or you can always contact me via my Contact page on this website.

I remain Yours Between the Lines,
Sherry

(Next week, let’s discuss National Novel Writing Month!)

Happy Labor Day! From what I’ve read on numerous social platforms, those born from about 1975 and forward don’t really have any idea what Labor Day is all about. If you are like me and born in the mid ’50s through the ’60s, you learned about the events leading to the holiday and why it matters.

To most people either the day is one for activity (read, activism), or a day of rest. Both are correct and both are wrong.

In a very small nutshell, Labor Day was created as a Federal Holiday in 1894 by President Cleveland because of a strike in the Pullman Company, in Pullman Chicago. The strike which culminated in bringing unions to the forefront of the country, cost $80 in damage and the death of 30 people. The strike by the Pullman Company (who made luxury rail cars) was supported by the American Railroad Union (ARU). Workers lived in Pullman housing. And when the great depression of 1890 struck, Mr. Pullman tried to keep the company afloat first by dropping wages by 30%. But when he refused to drop his housing costs to meet the reduced wages, trouble erupted. Everyone had two cents to offer and nothing much helped. So the workers struck in 1894. The ARU said they would no longer work on Chicago rail cars and the Chicago rail system broke down. Rather than defy the strike boycott, 125,000 workers over 29 companies quit their jobs. Non-union strikers caused the problem, violence broke out, federal troops were called in. The president’s making of a federal day off was only a part of the appeasement to union workers and brought about the end of the ARU but an increase in a desire for union assistance.

So we take Monday off to remember those who died in support of hard working men, men who desired a fair wage to meet their responsibilities in housing provided by the company. Reduce the wage and reduce the rent. Pay me what I need, was all they asked. As a result, if you sit at home and away from school or your job, you do it in the shadow of men who died for that honor.

Yes, it’s not the same as men who died for our country. But it should be remembered with respect, whether or not you support unions today.  Today’s union climate is a whole ‘nother issue for another day. On this day, we sit in gratitude for time off to rest with our family and celebrate the social and economic achievements of our American workers. (Here’s a cover from 1946).

As writers, we want to know the history. Historical fiction is very popular right now. But fiction rooted in truth means understanding the truth of what happened so you can write fiction about it. Or understanding lessons from it so you can write alternate realities built on real incidents. Better, how about some science fiction where the union lost that day? Writers need to know truth no matter what you write. The truth makes our fictions, our tales, have muscle and grip us more surely than making up what we think happened.

For those who see this day as the “official” end to summer, then stop wearing white! And get shopping those sales. Remember not to work too hard.

I hope you celebrate the day and do it in reflection. However you remember and celebrate the day, write about it. The day is part of a social consciousness that must be remembered. Who better to remember than the writer?

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In other news – I am pleased to announce that my memoir, Breaking the Glass Slipper, is a 2017 Kindle Book Awards Semi-Finalist! I am completely blown away and humbled. This is the fourth award for this novel, a book I am very proud to share.

Also, Slipper is nominated in Metamorph Publishing Summer Indie Book Awards, Biography category. Voting is open to all for free. Vote once a day through Sept 11. There are oodles of other fabulous authors who crave your vote too. Please have a look here and don’t forget to vote for me in the Biography group! Thank you.

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 I promised you some information about the oral read-through on my current WIP (work in progress) and I will write about it. I’m going to wait one more week because Terri and I have one more meeting and then I’ll have some words of wisdom for you. So I didn’t forget, ok?__________________________________________________

Finally, here’s my Monday #pinyourpen. I’ll have this on my Facebook page and Twitter. Hope you’ll come out to Facebook and share yours too.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope your Labor Day is safe and shared with family and friends.

Until next time, I remain,
Yours Between the Lines,
Sherry

Truth. This morning I realized it was Monday. I hadn’t written my blog post! Honestly folks, I’m neck-deep in final book edits, did a live chat on Facebook on Saturday Aug 26, watched Eclipse 2017 last Monday and had a variety of workers/delivery people at the house — okay, so maybe I’m making excuses but real life does have a way of pushing some things out of your mind. Despite my PAA reminding me last Thursday to start my blog, I let it slip away. So let’s catch up.

First, the eclipse last week was incredible. We live in one of the “almost total” area, 98.7%. Not total darkness, not even a real twilight for us, but then everything turned a bit hazy green, shadows sharpened, crescent shadows were everywhere and I was as excited as a kid going to her first birthday party. The shadow shot is from my driveway and the crescent shot my husband took with his smartphone through glasses (that’s why it looks dark). That’s as close as we came to a full eclipse. For me, it was as if I experienced the big bang. I am so easy to please and hey, a once in a lifetime experience!

Confession. We plan to see the total eclipse in 2024 by going to Indiana (warning, family!).

Besides the multitudes of people passing through our place this last week (Sears, Trugreen, ValuePest, Salvation Army, Schwans, UPS) and being a total and complete distraction, not much else happened. Everyone’s been planning for the kids to head back to school, and wondering if a roundabout built in a major intersection would be done in time for school.

And yes, it is done and people are acting like they’ve never driven a circle before. Indeed most have not if they have never been overseas or to another large metropolitan area. It is a bit laughable to hear people cheering how they successfully navigated a circle. I don’t mean to be mean, but honestly, it’s a circle.

I suppose it isn’t nice to laugh at people’s discomfiture, but from the videos posted online, it is funny to listen to people breathe and laugh at themselves when they realize there was nothing to their fear. I laugh harder when they say, “oh I didn’t realize it was only a circle.” Too rich.

As for what’s happening with me? I’m working on the final edits of my new book, Time and Blood. Later this week, my PAA and I will get together for the oral read through. That’s always painful, long and often funny. Next week, I will write about why that is so important.

(Please note the reference books:  Words’Worth by Jane Riddell; How to Write Dazzling Dialogue by James Scott Bell; Writing Fight Scenes, by Rayne Hall; and Revising and Self-Editing, by James Scott Bell)

Also next week I should be working with my cover designer, Marisa-rose Robyn, owner of Cover Me Darling designs to do the exciting new cover. Marisa did the covers for my books, The Gypsy Thorn (my last book), Breaking the Glass Slipper and The Book of Now. She’s won several awards lately and will make my book shine. Her cover work on The Book of Now has won a couple awards. 

At the end of September/first of October, Cassy Roop of Pink Ink Designs will do the formatting for the new book. She did the formatting for The Book of Now and Breaking the Glass Slipper. The interior of The Book of Now won an award from Independent Press Awards (IPA). 

You can see why I revisit designers and formatters who do fine work. And yes, they are worth the money. Please pay for quality work. And if you decide to do your own covers, learn how to do them well and learn about the various genres including fonts and colors. Or do as I do and leave it to the award-winning professionals. They will make you look good!

A few personal notes. I do a Fireside With the Phoenix live Facebook chat at the end of every month. Most of the time I discuss a little something about writing, make some thanks yous, answer questions sent to me, and talk about upcoming events, giveaways, or contests. You don’t want to miss these going forward. Trust me. Keep an eye to my Facebook Author page for the when and time of each live chat.

Finally, every Monday I like to participate in #pinyourpen. It’s a fun way to showcase your favorite handwriting tool. Some like fountain pens and others like ballpoint. Some like gel pens and others collect quill pens. Whatever you like, be sure to join in on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and show me yours. This is mine for this week.

Thanks for stopping by for a bit of this and that. See you next time.

Until then, I remain,