This bonus story is already up on the prelaunch updates for the Kickstarter!
I hope you’re having a good pre-holiday run! I wanted to give you a sneak peek of some bonus stories I’ve been working on. These are very short little vignettes that will only be available to prelaunch followers of my Kickstarter for signed copies of the complete Rowena series. As part of it, there will be several Kickstarter-exclusive bonus stories, some as part of the prelaunch, some as part of the actual campaign.
To get the first set of stories, all you have to do is follow the campaign prelaunch! The stories will be shared for free with all followers periodically throughout the prelaunch period. To make it clear: these stories will be completely free and there’s no obligation to back the campaign, just to follow the prelaunch.
Here’s the opening paragraphs of the first little bonus vignette. Eagle-eyed readers will spot references to the first chapter of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita:
It was the kind of hot May evening you got sometimes in Moscow that, if you knew your Russian literature, might make you expect Satan to come up and proffer you a business card covered in strange foreign writing.
The card currently being proffered to Dima did, in fact, have strange foreign writing on it, or at least English. He wasn’t sure yet whether or not it was from Satan.
This story takes place prior to the events of the series itself. It’s a kind of prequel to the prequel, you might say. Again, to get the rest of the story, and other bonus prequel stories, all you have to do is follow the Kickstarter campaign prelaunch.
Well, after a couple of busy months, I’m excited to announce that Terminal Degree is finally available for preorder! Yes, at last, it’s (almost) here! The official release date is December 31st.
Funnily enough, it starts on December 31, 2016, at a time when the US was in a state of doubt and confusion during the interregnum period between the election of Donald Trump and the start of his administration. And where do we find ourselves now? That wasn’t what I was consciously expecting when I was actually writing the book, but art is often smarter than logic that way. The book is about a lot of things, but one of them is what it’s like to be living in modern-day America, and, well, I guess we still have a lot of the same problems.
Anyway, the cover and blurb are below, and the link to preorder it is here. And if you’re not on my ARC team but you’d like to be, reply to this email and I’ll add you. I’m planning to send out the ARCs in a couple of weeks, so a month before the release. Hopefully I’ll be finished at least with the recording of the audiobook by then–I’ve had some annoying technical difficulties that have delayed me. I now have a new, more expensive microphone, and have been hard at work recording as much as time and my throat permits (doing John and Dima’s voices tends to frack up my vocal cords, and they both feature heavily in this book).
Cover and blurb below!
Rowena Halley has hit a dead end. Will it leave her dead?
Russian professor Rowena Halley is at the end of her money, the end of her job contract, the end of her romantic hopes…the end of her tether. And just when she thinks she can’t take any more, she gets dragged into not one, but two sticky situations by her nearest and dearest. Her friend Mel needs her help dealing with a scammer, and her long-lost paternal grandparents want her back in their lives—with cultish strings attached.
But Rowena has even bigger problems. Her ex-fiancé, opposition Russian journalist Dima Kuznetsov, comes to America, bringing old history and new danger with him. Rowena wants to believe they have a future as a couple. The mercenaries and hitmen Dima has been tangling with over the years could mean they don’t have a future, period. And revelations about Dima’s most recent deal with the Devil cause Rowena to doubt their chances to make a life together, even if they do survive.
Rowena wants a happy ending for everyone. But with this many bad guys mad at her, the ending she’s most likely to get is the terminal kind.
Content warning: This book contains an Air Force veteran, an officer in the Marines, and an ex-member of the Russian OMON. The language is accordingly salty.
***
There you have it! This book has been a long time in the making (and is, fair warning, accordingly long), but I’m glad it’s finally almost ready to go out into the world. Here‘s the preorder link again, and please let me know if you’d like to join the ARC team!
I’m writing to you from a rather rainy day here on the East Coast. This spring seems determined to make up for the warm, dry autumn we had last year by being cold and damp. Not snowy, you understand: there’s been zero snow. But there’s been a lot of chilly rain. Today at least has had the grace to be reminiscent of a nice soft day in the British Isles, so I’m hoping that it will do my garden some good.
I had great plans to have a first draft of Terminal Degree, the last book in the Rowena Halley series, done by now. Hahahahaha! While the words have flowed pretty easily, tying up all the threads of the previous books means that it will be pretty long. AND I’ve gotten sucked into a super-secret side project which will probably never see the light of day, but which has taken up a lot of my writing time.
(Never fear: I’ll try to incorporate bits of the super-secret side project into my main stories if I can’t publish it, so it won’t go to waste).
However, I have brought Rowena and Dima all the way from January to March. Their relationship is still a giant question mark hanging over their heads, though, and Dima has to set off on his own super-secret side project. I’m including a little excerpt from the March section here to whet your appetite 🙂
But first! All my books are free this week only on the Smashwords Read an Ebook Week sale! Check out the main page here and my personal page here.
And now, at long last, another tense exchange between Rowena and Dima:
***
Dima left early the next morning. He knocked on my door before dawn. When I opened it, he stood there for a long time, looking at me.
“Come in,” I said.
He shook his head. “If I come in, I’ll never leave. I’d better go. I’ll try to let you know I’m okay, but I don’t know how often I’ll be able to be in touch.”
“Try to contact us if you can,” I told him. “We worry. A lot.”
He took a deep breath in and out. “Then I’ll try.” He smiled bleakly. “I must be getting old. This is the first time I don’t want to go on an assignment. I used to thirst for this kind of thing like the water of life. But now I just want to stay here with you and Mama. Some new stage of life, or something like that.”
“I think Pushkin said something clever about that, but I can’t remember it,” I said.
“Yeah…blessed is he who…I can’t remember the rest, either. Anyway.” He shifted from foot to foot. “I’d better go.”
“Come back soon,” I said. “You owe me, remember?”
Something flared in his eyes. He was—deliberately, I thought, with effort—not smiling, but the dimple on his left cheek flexed into view for a second. I could tell, as surely as if his body were mine, that warmth was spreading through him at the memory of last night. “And you always collect on your debts, is that you’re telling me?”
“I intend to collect on this one,” I said. “As God is my witness, I intend to collect on this one.” I’d meant it to be a joke, but it came out as a solemn vow.
“Then pray for me, Inna. Pray for me, and I’ll return.”
“I will,” I promised.
He reached out. His hand hovered in front of my face for a moment, before one finger brushed my lips, soft as a butterfly. He inhaled sharply and pulled his hand away.
“Go with God, Inna,” he said.
“You too,” I told him.
He turned and left. I watched him walk down the stairs and into the pre-dawn semi-darkness. He held the hand that had touched my lips over his mouth the whole way, as if restraining a desperate cry of despair—or inhaling every last atom of a scent only he could sense. Then he was gone.
***
You will be the first to know when Terminal Degree is finished. Meanwhile, you can pick up all my books, plus many others, in the Smashwords Read an Ebook Week sale! Happy reading!
Hope your 2024 is continuing to go well–January is such a long month, isn’t it? If you’ve been hit by the various storms that have been sweeping across North America, I hope they haven’t been too exciting. We’ve had thunderstorms, floods, deep freezes, and now flooding again, but so far we’ve at least avoided tornados (knock on wood).
I’m continuing to work on Terminal Degree, the last (planned) book in the Doctor Rowena Halley series. It’s currently looking like it’s going to be rather long, so I don’t have a good idea of when it will be finished, but I thought I’d share a little more of the creative process behind it.
But first, it’s the last weekend of the Strong Women promo, with dozens of free books, including mine! Check it out here.
As I’ve mentioned before, part of my creative process can include specific songs and playlists to either set the mood or provide ideas for plot and character. Total Immersionhad the songs of Florence + the Machine as a running thread throughout the story, for example, while the character Mel listens to the songs of Hayley Kiyoko.
When I started writing Total Immersion, I happened to be listening to “I Wish It Would Rain Down” by Phil Collins (there’s that wild weather again). To be honest, I haven’t quite worked out how the song is going to feature in the book yet, but I have a strong feeling that it needs to. The problem is that it’s a song about endings, and while Terminal Degree will have lots of endings in it, as you might guess from the title, it will also have lots of beginnings, especially for the complex romantic lives of the series’ main characters. So while the melancholy of “I Wish It Would Rain Down” is part of the mood I’m going for, it’s only one part of what is looking to be a long and complicated book.
Then–and I don’t even remember how or why–I went on a Gary Allan kick. I’ve included his songs in earlier books, specifically in relation to Rowena’s brother John, who is a fan. This time, I haven’t name-dropped Gary Allan (yet–the book is still far from finished), but I have included a side plot about John based on the song “Man to Man.” How this will turn out is still to be determined.
Terminal Degree is supposed to end on a hopeful note (spoiler alert!), especially (further spoiler alert!) for the characters’ personal lives. A song I’ve had on repeat while working on scenes involving second-chance romance (because there’s going to be some of that, of course!) is “Bartender” by James Blunt. In fact, I’ve been binge-listening James Blunt for the past several weeks, as his music is full of themes that feature heavily in the stories, such as trauma, self-criticism, and regret. If that sounds too sad, it’s not! At least, I find James Blunt’s music delightful, with catchy tunes and unexpected moments of humor, and I’d like to think my books have glimmers of humor and hope as well.
What about you? Are you listening to anything you’d like to share right now? I’m always happy to get more listening recommendations!
Oh, and here’s that link to the Strong Women book giveaway again.
Hi All!Just wanted to give you a quick update and let you know about a deal I’m participating it. The audiobook of Campus Confidentialis currently free as part of the Indie Audiobook Deals promo, running this week! Check out all the deal here.
I’m still hard at work finishing up the audiobook of Under Review. In fact, I’m hoping it will be done this weekend! In the meantime, you can listen to most of it (for free!) on YouTube if you want to get a preview.
Oh, and remember how I promised some exciting and delightful news at the beginning of the month? Well, here it is. I have added another cat to the clowder!
Here she is exploring the backyard. That’s cat fencing you see behind her, so she is securely (we hope–she’s a bit of an escape artist) contained within the yard.
As is so often the case, she was not the cat I was initially intending to get. I wanted a kitten or kittens, preferably longhaired. But my attempts to get particular kittens kept falling through, and I ended up going to the shelter several times. Every time she was still there and was so sweet that I just couldn’t take it anymore and eventually brought her home.
Of course, I promptly realized that she was the perfect cat and fate had known better than my conscious mind what I really needed. Her name is Estë, after the goddess in the Silmarillion who always wears gray. She appears to be part Siamese and is very small and kittenish, even though she’s probably about 4 years old.
I may still get that longhaired kitten at some point, but right now I’m pretty busy dealing with the clowder as it currently stands. However, shelters are overrun all over the country right now, so if you’re thinking of getting a cat, now is a great time!
Wishing you much kitty-filled joy in the coming weeks. And if you also feel moved to do some reading, here are the links again for the Indie Audiobook Deals sale and Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale, which is running until the end of the month.
Happy holidays, and if you’re in the path of the giant cold front that’s currently threatening to sweep across most of North America, I hope you’re staying warm!
I myself am currently trying to recover from a hectic week of grading and other excitement. The good news is that I managed to get my final grades in with hours to spare. The even better news is, well, see below…
If you’re wondering what Smashwords is, it’s an ebook distributor. They recently merged with Draft2Digital, the distributor that handles my ebooks, and so all my ebooks are now on the Smashwords store.
This is exciting for authors because the Smashwords store offers the best royalties in the business. And they are holding a MASSIVE sale from now until January 1st, so now is the time to check them out! You can access the main storefront here and my personal page here.
Well, I’m sure we all have pre-holiday stuff to do, or maybe just relaxing for the weekend, so I’ll end it there. As always, happy reading!
I hope you are having a wonderful weekend, wherever you are. Things continue to be unsettled around the world. My home state of North Carolina has seen a series of mainly peaceful protests, although there have also been accounts of police in the larger cities using tear gas and pepper balls. And while everyone’s taken their eyes off it, COVID-19 has started to run riot and we are now experiencing pretty scary levels of growth in the number of cases, especially in my region.
Needless to say, I’m staying resolutely at home. Whether you’re staying at home or going out and engaging with the world in a meaningful way, I hope you are staying safe and taking care of yourself and those around you.
In more positive news, I’m discounting Campus Confidentialto just 99c for this week!
If you haven’t read it yet, Campus Confidentialis a mystery, a thriller, and a story of karma. It’s very much of the real world, and is more gritty than cozy, but it also offers the promise that there are good people in the world, and that good deeds can be rewarded, sometimes when you least expect it. So while it’s not exactly fluffy escapism, it does offer the promise that heroes are real, or can be.
Want to get it while it’s on sale? The universal link is here.
I hope you are all safe and healthy, and holding up as well as can be expected under lockdown. What special strategies are you using to stay sane?
My wild and wonderful semester is careening to a halt. We are all waiting with bated breath to see what the fall brings, but it only affects me somewhat, since I am supposed to be on research leave. My proposed project is on Anna Politkovskaya, whom I reference several times in the Doctor Rowena Halley series, so expect to hear regular updates about that.
Meanwhile, I’ve started working on the audiobook of Trigger Warning (preorder the ebook here for just 99c!). As with the previous books in the series, I’m planning to release it as a podcast first before putting it up for sale. You can currently listen to Episode 1 on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and TuneIn. If all goes well, I should be adding 1-2 episodes a week over the next few weeks.
Recording audiobooks is a ton of work, but I also find it very satisfying artistically. Originally I was against the idea of doing voices, but when people started telling me they liked it when I did voices, I got into it, and now try to do distinct voices with distinct accents and speech patterns for each character. I can’t say that I’m always 100% successful, but it’s fun–okay, incredibly difficult and frustrating, but in a fun way–and people seem to like it.
To increase the fun, I’m contemplating doing a little Kickstarter project in order to make audio versions of the short stories I’m writing from the perspective of Dima, Rowena’s Russian ex-fiance. Stay tuned for more updates, and in the meantime, if you’d like a free e-copy of “Summer Break,” the first of the shorts about Dima, email your proof of preorder of Trigger Warningto sidstark@sidstarkauthor.com.
I hope everyone is safe and sound and at home. We live in interesting times, do we not? Of course, so do most people. If you’re feeling apprehensive/panicky/outraged at how everyone’s losing their dang minds, maybe now is the time to watch my favorite inspirational speech of all time:
There are other forces at work besides the will of evil.
The good news, from my point of view, is that my university, like many other universities around the country, has mandated a switch to remote learning for an indefinite period into the future. This is good because proactive closing of schools is supposed to be one of the most effective measures you can take to stop the spread of disease. It’s a little irritating for those of us who had our disability accommodations request to study or teach remotely denied because it just “didn’t meet our rigorous standards” or was a “hardship” for our programs, but it is an amusing lesson in karma, I suppose.
It is my sincere hope that in a few weeks we’ll all look back on this and wonder what the big fuss was about. Successful contagion-containment measures always look like overkill. And that’s okay. Better to be safe than sorry.
Meanwhile, for those of us who do mainly intellectual/creative labor, perhaps being trapped at home will bring about a tremendous burst of productivity! As someone who’s mainly trapped at home all the time, I can testify that there’s nothing like it for getting your creative/intellectual work done.
For example, Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s most beloved writer, had one of his most famous bursts of inspiration and productivity while under quarantine at a family estate in the country, as cholera ravaged Russia. He was untouched by it, and wrote some of his most magnificent works, including the wonderful A Feast in Time of Plague. If you’re casting about for something to do while in self-isolation, maybe check it out! Get the entire collection of his Little Tragedies! See what wonderful things can come of quarantine, alongside all the bad stuff.
This also, of course, seems like a great time to plug my own writing, so as a reminder, Trigger Warning, book 4 in the Doctor Rowena Halley series, is currently on pre-order. I’m in the process of transitioning everything to “wide,” meaning available on all stores, not just Amazon, so the link for Trigger Warningis a universal link that will take you to your preferred store.
Currently trialing yet another cover.
And if you preorder Trigger Warningnow (it’s just 99c!) and send me your proof of preorder, I’ll send you an exclusive short story, completely free! What’s not to like? Email me your proof of preorder to sidstark@sidstarkauthor.com or reply to this post, and I’ll send you the link for Summer Break, a little side story set in the war zone in the Donbass.
Stay safe, everyone!
And last but not least, here are this week’s selection of giveaways:
Check out the Sneak Peek Giveaway to get an exclusive preview of upcoming releases
Well, it’s practically sort of wintry here right now, with temperatures below freezing. This is after a bunch of 60-degree days in December and January, and an actual tornado last week. Luckily it didn’t get too close, but any sort of tornado event anywhere within a three-county area knocks me out pretty good. One of the side effects of my health issues is that I appear to have become a weather witch. Who knew?? Has anyone else experienced a sudden ability to read the weather like this? The researcher in me is fascinated by this.
But magical powers are not the topic of this email–Advance Review Copies of Trigger Warning are! You can get an e-copy of it on Bookfunnel here.
It’s still cover-less, since the vote that many of you so kindly participated in the other week returned an almost exact 30/30/30 split between the three covers. So I’m going to have to do some more testing with them. But in the meantime, I thought I’d start letting my most dedicated readers have first crack at the (coverless) book itself. You’ll have plenty of time to read it and, if you feel moved, leave a review on Goodreads, because I’ve tentatively set the release date for the first week of September.
I decided to set the release date so far out for several reasons. One is that I’m also working on my academic non-fiction book, and I’m hoping to wrap up the revisions by the end of this semester. Another is that I’m planning to “go wide” with my books and release them on all retailers instead of just Amazon. This means that they will no longer be available on KU, which is a bummer, but on the flip side, anyone can request them through their local library. And, of course, I’m always happy to send readers free review copies 🙂 But it will take a little while to get everything up and running on all the retail and library sites.
The third reason I’m waiting so long is because I’m hoping to get A) the next book in the series (tentatively titled Honor Court) finished by then so that I can release them in rapid succession, and B) I’m planning to write a series of short stories from Dima’s point of view that interweave with Rowena’s main storyline. They will be available as exclusive preorder or download bonuses, so stay tuned for that! But it will take me a little while to get them all written and edited.
But enough about future hopes and dreams! Once again, if you would like to get an ARC of Trigger Warning, the link is here. It’s on a restricted list so it should ask you to provide your email address again in order to have access to it. If you have any problems with it, just let me know at sidstark@sidstarkauthor.com and I can email your the files directly.
A note about the content: A major topic in the book is gun violence in schools. This is something that I care about deeply. Not only is it something that all teachers have to consider these days–my friends and I have discussed our plans for what we would do in the event of a shooting more than once–but in the past two years there have been fatal shootings both at my BA alma mater and at the college where I currently teach. There have also been multiple fatal off-campus shootings of students at my PhD alma mater. The one at my BA alma mater was a typical “school shooting,” while the one at my current campus was the result of gang violence, but in both cases young people were gunned down by other young people who strolled onto campus and into a school event with loaded firearms.
If you find this upsetting–YOU SHOULD! Channel those strong emotions into political action.
So Trigger Warning takes on the topic of gun violence, as well as bullying and incel culture. A lot of it, as usual, is based on my own experiences and those of my friends, colleagues, and students. It’s fiction, but it’s the type of realist, partially autobiographical fiction that Toril Moi has identified as a trend towards what she defines as modern existential character-based fiction.
That’s a fancy way to say that it’s supposed to feel super-real to the reader, while dealing with “big issues” questions. So like all of my books, Trigger Warning has its dark moments. But also like all of my books, it also has a lot of comedy (I’m going for a chiaroscuro effect), and very little on-camera violence or gore. So you can go into it knowing that some difficult questions might be asked, but there is not going to be a high body count or explicit scenes of violence. Explicit language, yes :), explicit scenes of killing or torture, no.
Wow, that was a lot of writing! We probably all need to get on with our days, so without any further ado, here’s that link again to the Trigger Warning ARC.
Sid Stark, Academic Suspense Author 