Which is what I need to do! Travelling all day on Saturday was my excuse for not pimping my Torquere Sip, CLUE GAME on its release day. As it is now Monday, I think I’m out of excuses… Sooo, with a fanfare, here it is! A click on the Sip pic will take you to Torquere. *g*
Blurb…
After being estranged for a year, Ben and David are back together and more in love than ever. Their commitment ceremony is approaching, and they’ve taken the chance to extend a business trip to Paris into a pre-commitment, pre-honeymoon break.
They owe their present happiness to Barbara, who has a problem only they can solve, and rubies are involved. Ben has plans of his own – but they owe her too much to turn her down.
Ben and David were introduced in my other Sip, Breaking Point.
I was travelling all day yesterday, so didn’t get a chance to do more than update my Facebook, so here’s the fanfare for Starfall’s release *g*.
Hopefully no one’s fed up with me blithering on about it, but this book got right under my skin while I was writing it, and it’s still there. I have a feeling I’ll be revisiting Ash and Conn in the not too distant future.
My next release is Clue Game on Saturday, March 26th, a Sip from Torquere Press this time – Ben and David hunt rubies in Paris…
Back in 2007 I stayed with friends in Barre, Vermont, and this young man took my eye. The countryside around Barre and Montpelier is just stunningly beautiful – majestic – and need I say the maple syrup is especially delicious?
The spectacular scenery inspired me to set Starfall in Vermont. Amassol – an Abenaki name for canoe – is entirely fictitious, and so are the two lakes; Lake Verde and Mirror Lake. They are all set not so very far from Barre, and about an hour’s drive from Burlington. Creating my own places within an existing landscape, especially in a foreign land, is a very useful exercise as well as a fun thing to do.
~~~~~~~
About five years ago I came into a small windfall, and after paying off my mortgage I had enough cash left to visit a few of the places on my Travel Wish List. So I thought I’d post a selection of them over the next few weeks or so. I still travel, but only in the UK. I say ‘but’, yet there equally beautiful places here, so I’ll add some of those as well.
River Avon at Salisbury
Just for fun, here’s a pic I took a few weeks ago while walking into town.
After a great day yesterday on the Silver Publishing Facebook, I’m taking a day off to regroup *g*.
The final edits have been done on Starfall and Clue Game, and they are with the publishers for the last round of technical stuff.
Starfall will be released on March 19th by Silver Publishing.
Clue Game will be released on March 26th by Torquere Press in their Sip range.
Game On, Game Over is completed in first draft and is with my beta-readers for their input. It came in at just over 52,000, pretty much on target. That will change a little bit as it goes through the editing process, but not by much. It’s still in one document, even though its two parts are so different in setting and pace. When/If it’s accepted, I’ll be going by what my editor suggests. It might end up as two novellas – Game On, and Game Over.
So while I wait for Game On Game Over to come back from my betas, I’m going to dive into Fool’s Rush, the third and final part of the Fool’s Odyssey Trilogy for Manifold Press.
That leaves a further six titles on my WiP list:
Spiked – fantasy
Finders, Keepers – contemporary
Cause and Effect – paranormal
The Carandor Interface – SF
Oil and Water – paranormal
Tribulation – SF
Not to mention the as-yet untitled ideas floating around in the porridge that passes for my brain…
Clue Game, Game On Game Over, Starfall, WiPs, Writing | 
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Just a friendly warning – if you’re reading this, then it’s likely you have no problems with gay-themed stories. If you do or if you are under the legal age of consent in your country, please leave without reading on.
Tribulation – Part Two
Pirates. Doran shook his head. That didn’t make sense. Since the Trib system was so far out on a limb of the galaxy it was debatable whether or not it was actually in Consortium space, both its laws and law enforcement were very much its own. Justice was swift and summary, and ever since piracy had been scorched out of the system – literally – it had been relegated to the bad old days and the holovids. He pulled up the streaming news-channel, but nothing had been reported. Yet. He hesitated, then made another call.
“Hi,” he said when Chatik opened the line. “Have you heard about the Pellintor?”
“What about it? I know it’s late getting here, but that’s all.” As usual, Chatik’s vocal apparatus put in too many clicks, but Doran had grown up hearing more than a few variants of ConTrade Standard, the quadrant-wide lingua franca of the Fourth Consortium, and had no problems understanding.
“She’s just landed. I’ve heard they had a run-in with pirates.”
“They – what?” The small explosion of clicks and buzzes were Poirathri curses. Then, “I’ll get back to you,” Chatik said hurriedly and cut the connection.
Twenty minutes later, System News had screaming headlines flowing across the tops of the vid-screens; Pirates attack cargo ship – Moira Penrith’s daring dash saves the Pellintor! The news anchor, a gray-featured Maacran, promised an interview with Captain Jose Tortuga and the hero herself in the coming hour, but Doran dropped the screen. His shift would be over very soon and he would be getting all the details from his lover.
*
Doran reached home moments before Kree. He’d barely had time to start the package meal heating before the door slid open and Kree bounced in, his crest of copper-red hair bristling above the blond. Still on an adrenaline high, then. Doran had seen one or two Vyans who could pass as human if they kept their eyes behind shades; Kree wasn’t one of them. His fine-boned face had sharply angled cheekbones, narrow blade of a nose, and large golden eyes with black horizontal slots for pupils. He was currently displaying his very sharp double canines in a fierce grin.
“Ran!” he whooped and pounced on Doran, pulling his head down for a voracious kiss. “Pirates!” Doran staggered back under the assault, his arms wrapping around the slender but oh-so-whiplash-supple frame. “You should have been there!”
“I’m damn glad I wasn’t. I’d probably have pissed myself.”
“No, you’d've had my back like always if they’d boarded us.” Smaller and lighter though Kree was, Doran knew better than to doubt his fighting ability – and his willingness to throw himself into any scrap going. It fitted right alongside with Vyan loyalty, Vyan honor, Vyan impulsiveness.
“I’m just glad they didn’t. Who were they?”
“No idea. Their ship was an old patched up Mishuriga class light cruiser, but I’m pretty sure the drive engines had been modified and its weaponry was right up to date. No insignia, of course, and no way of knowing where it went after we lost it in the Erebos Belt. If it was me, I’d've skimmed just inside the Veil but I couldn’t prove that’s what they did.”
Doran nodded. The Veil was a strange phenomenon in a solar system that specialized in weird. Not quite gaseous, not quite ionized particles, it wrapped around the outer rim of Tribulation’s collection of planets and two asteroid belts in dense clouds of rippling beauty. It was impossible to track anything in it, and navigation through it was chancy at best. Not that anyone tried these days. After all, why bother, when the system could be entered at zenith and nadir without problems. Back in the early days of settlement, venturous souls had tried to explore it. Not many returned to report their findings. The Veil had a way of playing merry hell with instrumentation.
“Wonder why they tried for a supply ship,” Doran said thoughtfully. “Not much in the way of rich pickings among food and machinery. Were you carrying passengers?”
“No, not this trip.” Kree’s frown turned his features into an almost demonic mask. “Now you mention it, it is kind of odd.”
…tbc
Nothing from the Word Generator this time *grin*. Tribulation seems to be growing legs and running without prompts.
Because Real Life has been a bit of an uncooperative b**ch for the last few weeks, the 1st of the Month Fic hasn’t been written yet. It will arrive, honest, I just don’t know when…
On a more productive front, Game On Game Over has just crept over the 50 k mark, and I only have a couple of scenes to finish. Then it’s off to my beta-readers for their input.
I’ve also completed a ‘Five Things’ interview for friend and fellow author RJ Scott, which was a little different to the norm and fun to do.
Brief Encounters Reviews are having a ‘Fortnight of UK Authors from March 21st to April 1st’, and I’m one of their featured authors. I’ve been interviewed, but not sure yet when it’ll be posted. They specialize in reviews of short stories, and my Torquere Sips qualify *grin*.
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