Karen Dale Harris

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Jilly: $0.99 pre-order for The Seeds of Power

The Seeds of Power is live on Amazon! Whoo!

I was beginning to think I’d never get there. It was a super-exciting moment to get the email, and even better that I was Skyping with fellow 8 Lady Jeanne at the time.

The ebook will go on sale next Saturday for $3.99 but I wanted to give regular readers of 8LW the chance to pick it up for $0.99, so I decided to do a stealth pre-order for the next week. If you’d like to try the book, pre-order before Saturday and you’ll get the lower price.

(The dollar pricing is for Amazon.com. If your local Amazon is different, then the pre-order is set at the minimum price for your territory, again until next Saturday).

As a reminder, the book is fantasy romance in a historical setting. Expect a strong-minded heroine, chivalrous hero, forced marriage, natural magic, and life-or-death stakes.

Here’s the blurb:

Her unique skills keep her safe. Until her greatest strength becomes her fatal weakness.

Princess Christal of Larrochar learned long ago that to marry was to risk her life. At twenty-eight she’s resolutely unwed, trusted assistant to the King’s Cultivator and an expert in rare plants.

Then, to her horror, she receives a marriage proposal she can’t refuse. All Prince Daire of Caldermor cares about is elan—the mysterious golden beans that bring his family untold wealth and power. If Daire wants Christal, elan must be at the root of his interest.

Christal’s father would sacrifice her to discover elan’s secrets. The Calderrans would kill to keep them secure. To save herself Christal will need every kernel of knowledge she’s ever gleaned. And the support of Kiran Randsen, elite soldier turned Calderran bodyguard, who may be something even rarer than elan—a man she’d trust with her life.

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I hope you try it. And I really, really hope you like it!

Pre-order link for Amazon.com here

Pre-order link for Amazon.co.uk here

Thank you for sharing the journey to publication with me 😀

As our professor Jenny Crusie used to say in class, Nothing But Good Times Ahead!

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Jilly: Not Perfect, But Done

Spring is here! The days get lighter, the weather improves (at least if you’re in the northern hemisphere), flowers bloom, birds sing, and suddenly everything seems fresh and new and exciting. I usually find this is my most creative and productive time of the year, and I’m starting to get that lovely buzzy, sparkly feeling.

If ’tis the season to begin new projects, it’s also the time to make room for them by closing out old ones, so I’m super-happy to report the closure (or imminent closure) of three big time-eaters that have kept me busy for the last year or more.

Please forgive me if I indulge in a little trumpet-blowing 😉

1. Last week, in my non-writing life, I made the final payment required to finish the administration of my late mother’s estate. My mum passed away in January 2018, which means it has taken me fourteen months to finalize her affairs, and it hasn’t been for lack of effort. I can’t tell you what a relief it is finally to be able to draw a line under the whole process.

2. In the next week or so, I’ll send the finished first draft of The Seeds of Power (Christal’s book) to my content editor, Karen Dale Harris. I started writing this story in spring last year as a way to get back into my fantasy world after a complete break of three months. The book is far from perfect, but it has been a joy to write. I really like the main characters, and as they all return later as important secondary characters in Alexis’s story I think I’ll be able to bring added depth to my edits when I settle down to polish that book. Double yay!

3. And on Thursday the finalists for the RWA Golden Heart contest are announced. It’s not that I’m expecting to final (of course I would love to) but that last summer I decided to make a concerted effort to polish up three entries and make them as good as I possibly could. It’s the last year of the contest, and my last year as an unpublished author, so I wanted to close that chapter of my writing life knowing I’d given it my best shot. I’d guesstimate that I put almost six months of hard work into my entries. I learned a lot, and I’m happy with where I finished up, so whether I final or not, Thursday will be a day of closure. I’ll be celebrating my efforts, not the outcome 😉 . I’ll also be toasting Jeanne’s RITA and Justine’s Golden Heart entries.

I plan to publish The Seeds of Power later this year. If I’m going to achieve that I have a whole daunting laundry list of things to do and learn in the next few months. It’s all too easy to focus on the next task, and the one after that, and to forget to take a moment to breathe and celebrate a milestone passed.

So, before I move onwards and upwards…cheers, m’dears!

What did you finish or start lately? Or what do you have planned?

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Michaeline: Three Questions for Jeanne Oates Estridge about her professional debut!

snake winding its way around a practical female hand holding an apple

The Demon Always Wins (image via Amazon)

Today marks a red letter day for us: not only is our blog celebrating five years of existence, but one of our Ladies is publishing her first book today. Jeanne Oates Estridge started The Demon Always Wins in May 2012 in response to the popular Twilight series.

I got to read an early version of it in the McDaniel course for romance writing during the 2012 school year, but lots of people have seen the book in progress. Jeanne mentions her long-time critique group, as well as a group of writers known as The Cool Kids that she met at the Midwest Writers Workshop, members of a one-day workshop in Indianapolis with Lucrecia Guerrero, several of the Eight Ladies and a handful of beta readers. Whew! It takes a village, doesn’t it?

The book was a finalist in all of the five contests Jeanne entered it in, and won the 2015 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart award in the paranormal romance category with an earlier incarnation called Demons Don’t. The sequel, The Demon’s in the Details, was also a finalist in the 2018 paranormal romance category of the Golden Heart. Another version of The Demon Always Wins won first place in the paranormal/SF/fantasy category of the 2015 Diamonds in the Desert contest under the name of Demon’s Wager.

Having read the latest version, I can tell you the book has evolved from good to great over the years – the words are different, but they stay true to the underlying story. But enough from me. Let’s ask Jeanne a few questions!

8LW: We did the McDaniel course for romance writing together in 2012-2013, instructed by best-selling romance writer Jennifer Crusie. What lesson from the class had the most impact on your final book? Continue reading →

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Jilly: Season of Fruitfulness, 2017

It’s October already. How did that happen? What do you absolutely, definitely, non-negotiably intend to get done before the end of the year?

I’m not one for new year’s resolutions, but I do like to end the year with a feeling that I’ve achieved something, finished something, made some progress. So I usually take stock around now, at the beginning of the fourth quarter, and set myself some objectives for the next three months.

Continue reading →