Summer Devon's Blog, page 5

Never mind promo. It's time to get outraged

I'd read the basics of Lon and Jim's heartbreaking story before and, for some reason, I had supposed it had all turned out well.

That comes of writing and reading too much HEA fiction or maybe of supposing smarter, more compassionate humans will generally prevail.

It's still ongoing and still outrageous.

(Follow the links in this piece if you haven't been keeping up with Jim and Lon's sad saga.)
http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/...

The Tail of a Dog Helps a Dog that Looks Like The Dog in The Tail of A Dog

You can get the short story I wrote from a prompt about a dog The Tail of a Dog at no cost at a couple of places, including here at goodreads in the m/m group. BUT I also sell the story at Amazon http://amzn.com/B00D6VFOO2 and Barnes and Noble. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-t... Did you know that 100 percent of the profits of those versions** go to a dog rescue group, http://ruffstarthappytails.org/?

One of the dogs Ruff Starts**** yanked from a kill-shelter looks a lot like the original dog in my story--the one in the photo prompt--and she's in the same condition. (Poor thing, pregnant in summer.)
Here she is!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...


**actually 125% of the profits so far.
*****why do dog rescues and hair salons always have hyper-cute names?

hey! it's release day!

The Gentleman's Keeper is out today! I do like release day. It's like giving a cocktail party without having to get dressed up or serve anyone else drinks.
Here's a blog post about our new book! including bits of reviews. Notice the nice reviews? If you didn't, I advise you to go back and read again.

Since I'm in promo-mode, here's a dog almost identical to the one in my short story, "The Tail of a Dog". She's even pregnant! Okay, so she doesn't look like the one on the cover my kid made, but very much like the dog in the original photo.

Why am I showing you this? Because she was saved by the group that gets the profits from the story's sales at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The dog was in a must-find-a home-in-10-days-or-get-put-to-sleep shelter and now she's in a foster home, waiting to whelp.

Nice, huh? Buy more copies and we'll help get her pups good homes, too.

So many things.

let's go to bullet point ASAP and save time, okay? Good.

--The Gentleman and the Rogue is now as an audiobook. Buy it, listen to a man who calls himself Jasper and who is actually ENGLISH.

--I am selling the free short story The Tail of the Dog. Sure, you can still read it free here. But if you want to spend money, I'm not going to stop you. In fact, I'm going to say, go for it and let's throw that money to the dogs. I am going to give my profits to this doggy rescue organization.

and YO!! LOOK!! ANOTHER Free book!

This one is a short story and it's here at goodreads. You can read it if you're a member of the m/m group:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Be warned: it's in the POV of a dog, it has no sex at all (just the smell of it) and most readers have described it as "cute".
If you're not a member of the group, you can either read it at my blog http://katerothwell.blogspot.com or wait until I put it up at Amazon and other spots. I'll charge then, but the profits, if there are any, will go to Kenway's Cause.

A Free book!

Thank You, Mrs. M is a Kate Rothwell title and it's free through Monday June 3rd.

Go ahead, load the story onto your Kindle (and if you're like me, ignore it after that. I have about 100 freebies I load and forget [But, wait. No! Don't be like me].)
Here's a link to the freebie:
http://amzn.com/B0075O2BV0

At the moment it's #25 in the college/new adult category...a category I didn't know exited.

Unlike a lot of Summer Devon titles, this is an m/f, but mostly it's an M, told in first person.

here are some reviews:

4.5 stars!
This is a sweet, funny and emotional tale. This modern take on Daddy-Long-Legs, by Jean Webster, has wonderful, fully developed characters... This incredible story will appeal to adult as well as young readers. --Romantic Times


Thank You, Mrs. M. is a wonderful read...This is a poignant and enjoyable read. --Night Owl Reviews

This is not just Daddy Long Legs gender-reversed and updated for shock value, but a thoughtful and really interesting re-imagining of how the story might play out in today's world.

There are light homages to the original, which add a bit of extra glow to the romance if you're a fan, but what really made the story for me were the differences. It turns out the unknown philanthropist, here dubbed by our narrator Ben as "Mrs. Moneybags," has private, very unexpected motivations for helping orphaned Ben through college. And it was appropriate that Ben, who's described as very smart and thinking outside the box, catches on to what those are. --willaful

I like Ben a lot and I hope you do too.
--Kate/Summer

Awww ....

The review is nice but the comments from two people I like --and I've even MET Irene!--are even nicer.

In other news, Bonnie and I are writing a book set in an insane asylum and I'm looking at hundreds of pictures of those mid-Victorian structures. Holy crap, some of those places were built to look like dens of horror.

If you didn't have the heebiejeebies going in, Mr. Asylum Patient, you will soon enough....bwhahahahaha.

Some books don't get reviews

I don't pay close attention because that's not healthy. But I can't help noticing that Her Outlandish Stranger flapped by without notice.

AND I also notice that Taming the Bander has plenty of reviews, and many of the sites have given it good marks. Yay for that!

Here's one it got today:

http://mrsconditreadsbooks.com/index....

4.5/5
"The plot was solid and imaginative with plenty of twists and turns. The story flowed really well, it was easy to read and I was always thinking just one more page. Highly recommended for anyone who wants a cracking read and a shifter with a difference."

I found a few good reviews and now I shall put them in a pile and roll around in them, like a dragon in its gold.

http://joyfullyjay.com/2013/03/review...

http://www.reviewsbyjessewave.com/201...

http://www.rarelydustybooks.com/2013/...

New Book: Taming the Bander and a contest

Summer has an m/m out today Taming the Bander Yay! And it's gotten two good reviews. Yay! (one's here at Goodreads)

4.75/5 stars at Jessewave

"A deliciously light-hearted story about an unusual shapeshifter and his unlikely lover....
...I got a wonderful pairing of tall, dark and silent with bright, vivid and chatty. Flintstone and spark. Rock and wind. Jake and Vaughn complement each other beautifully, even though it takes both of them a while to see that, and I had a great time being a fly on their wall. Warmly recommended."

--Feliz

HEY ARE YOU STILL READING? I hope so. Because now I want you to enter the contest. Winner will get one of Summer's backlist--or her new ebook.
Here's how to enter:
1. comment here.
2. Simply announce on twitter that Summer has a new book out (and don't forget to let @kate_rothwell know so she'll enter you into the contest.
3. Fan Summer's facebook page.
~OR~
4. Sign up for the newsletter -- you find that over at my blog.
5. Comment on any entry at that blog, (just be sure to point out that you're entering the contest).

true regret

Yesterday, as I did my quarterly whine**, I tried to think of actual actions I regret, careerwise. There are a few lost opportunities, stories that could have used more work, dumb moves, that kind of thing. But I only got a true pang of regret when I remembered the guy I interviewed about 20 years ago.

Back then, I worked for local magazines and newspapers (one of which still exists wowee). I wrote free-lance until I got a job as an editor.

I wrote dozens? hundreds? of articles back then. I interviewed all sorts of people--bee-keepers, collectors, athletes, politicians, acrobats, a real cowboy, Billy Ripken, artists, actors, writers, chicken farmers, home-schoolers, police officers, judges, lawyers....

Regrets. Right.

When I think about the interviews, I recall two I did back then, one with a woman lived in Frederick in the 1940s and another with a man who'd stormed Normandy during D-Day. I was supposed to write a series of articles about life in the US and in Europe for Frederick people during WW2.

The woman told me about her life. She lived in a nursing home and what else did she have to do with her time? She talked about life in World War 2 and World War 1. She was a nurse through both wars.

She described recovering from the flu of 1918, climbing out of bed to discover that her husband and infant lay dead in the next room. And she talked about what it was like to be a woman raising a child on her own and then what it was like to outlive everyone she loved. She apparently hadn't talked about some of these things--the stories didn't come out fluently. Perhaps it had only been a long time since she talked? But I remember her hesitancy and I sensed she didn't often talk about the past. Even then I felt as if I'd been given a gift.

I think I used two sentences about her in the article.

The last of the WW2 series got shortened? canned? I can't remember. Maybe I quit before I finished? All this regret feels personal so it must have been something I did. . . Anyway, in the end, the man who described landing on the beach didn't get to see his words in the magazine.

His descriptions would be familiar to anyone who's seen a WW2 movie. The ping of bullets hitting the sides of the landers sounded like mad typists at work. (The guy, whose name I've forgotten, liked to talk). He didn't get seasick, like most of the guys who were jammed onto the boat, but the smell of vomit and fear eventually got to him so he puked too.

I listened to him talk and tried to imagine this guy, overweight and kind of goofy looking, in a war. He talked and talked and began to cry. I got embarrassed for him (and thinking about it, now I'm embarrassed for me to even worry about trivial shit like that). I think I ended the interview by pretending to have an appointment. I can't remember what he said nearly as clearly as I can my own dumb actions. Typical.

I'd taped the interview and I took notes. The tape broke. I think I made a half-assed attempt to fix it. That article didn't happen. I lost the notes from the interview--to give me a tiny bit of credit, I did cart them around for years.

I don't remember their names. She seemed elegant and put together for someone who lived in a nursing home. He worked in a funeral home.

My greatest writerly regret of my career so far -- not keeping their words or their names.

_________
**every few months whether I'm up for it or not, the whine pours out.

from katerothwell.blogspot.com