Leah R. Cutter's Blog, page 16

Fiction River and Kickstarter and cross promotion and oh my!

To start on page one, as it were.

Fiction River is an anthology series edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith. They funded the first year using a Kickstarter. (The original video is awfully funny and silly.)

Kris and Dean have decided to run their subscription drive for the second year of Fiction River also using a Kickstarter.

Why am I announcing this?

Because I sold short stories to Dean and Kris for Fiction River, they asked me to contribute novels that could be used as part of the rewards for this year’s Kickstarter.

Win-win-win as far as I’m concerned.

So if you’d like a signed, print edition of Paper Mage as part of one of the rewards, as well as a whole bunch of other really cool books, check out the Kickstarter.

(There were other rewards that I was a part of, including copies of Poisoned Pearls but as of noon PST on Sept 3, those rewards have already been taken.)

My stories for Fiction River include:

Sisters to Unnatural Worlds

Fox and Hound to Hex in the City.

I’ve also sold short stories into two of this year’s anthologies. Past Crime (see the cover above, with my name on it!) as well as the special Kobo edition of Pulse Pounders which is available for preorder from Kobo. (And also has my name on it and I’m still beyond thrilled by that.)

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

First Rabbit story now available!

The Curious Case of Rabbit and the Temple Goddess is now available!

This is the story that I sold to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine last year and was in their 2014 Jan/Feb issue. I have also sold the second Rabbit story, Rabbit and the Missing Daughter to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. I don’t know when it will be published, but I’m assuming sometime later this year.

This story is free on my website for the next couple of weeks. It is also available for sale as an ebook for $2.99 at all the usual retailers.

The blurb:

When a mysterious stranger steals a beautiful silver statue of a local goddess, Rabbit finds himself accused of the theft. It’s the latest in a series of troubles for his favorite temple: the priest died mysteriously just the month before, and no one can find the deed for the land the temple occupies.

But are they just coincidences? Or is foul work at play?

Rabbit must confront not only his strict master, the bullying local magistrate, and a mighty warrior, but himself as well.

This mystery is set in Tang Dynasty China.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

The post that was…

Yeah, I was supposed to come back in and fill out the rest of the post that was scheduled to be posted very early this morning.

Oopps.

I’m fine – just had a root canal – not a lot of brain power.

So the real post, with REAL news, is that Zydeco Queen and the Creole Fairy Courts is now available as an audio book!

Yay! Huzzah!

And OMG is it a wonderful recording. I have been so lucky with the narrators who have been doing my books.

Go. Listen. And revel in that world for a while.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Zydeco Queen now available as an audio book!

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

WOW. Thank you!

WOW.

Thank you to everyone who’s bought Poisoned Pearls!

I’m not hitting the best seller charts, but I’ve had a lot more sales than I anticipated. It’s kind of awesome.

Makes me think that I’ll be writing the sequel, Tainted Waters, sooner rather than later…

(Yes, I already have a vague idea for the sequel. Takes place during the Aquatennial. And might involve Cthulu worshippers. And Atlantis. And other, different gods…)

(And if I’m going to be very honest-I mean, it’s just us here, right?-there’s probably a third as well, called Blackened Ice or some such thing…)

Anyway. Thank you again!

And if you haven’t gotten a copy yet, you can buy one at Amazon, Book View Cafe, Kobo, or Barnes & Noble.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Poisoned Pearls now available!

Poisoned Pearls is now available!

I am SO excited about this book! I just adore it. I’ve had some good feedback from other people as well. Fingers crossed that this one will sell well.

Here’s the blurb:

Working at a sex & toy shop like Chinaman Joe’s Good Luck Parlor keeps Cassie in smokes and off the streets. It isn’t glamorous. But it’s a life.

Then again, Cassie is just normal, not one of the blessed. No paranormal abilities, no telepathy, no pre-cognition. Normal.

But when someone kills Cassie’s best friend in the alley behind the store, the police start looking at her. Hard. Particularly when the Post-Cog on the case swears she’s involved, somehow.

Then someone strangles a prostitute right there in the store.

Cassie knows the cops are wrong about everything. She didn’t do it, and the deaths aren’t about drugs.

But to prove them wrong Cassie has to stop gods she didn’t know were real and prevent Ragnarok.

Her life will never be the same.

If you’re interested in reading a sample, you can download a sample here. You can also get a sample as an epub or as a mobi file.

I’ve also posted the prologue and first two chapters here.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Over sharing

I have neighbors who over share. It’s starting to really annoy me.

Let me explain.

Today is garbage pick up day in my neighborhood. Due to circumstances outside my control, I had to leave my cans out next to the curb for most of the day.

When I went to pick up my cans after they’d been emptied, I discovered that one of my neighbors had decided that one of my nice, clean, already emptied cans was a good place for them to place their garbage.

Now, if today had been the first time this had happened, I wouldn’t think much of it.

However, every time I leave my cans out on the curb, this happens.

I honestly don’t get it. Have they filled their cans to the brim, and so need to add more to mine? Were they late taking their own garbage out, so just filled mine?

I’ve never caught a glimpse of whoever is doing this. I don’t even know if it’s the same person every time.

I’m just perplexed and annoyed. So here. Have a picture of the kitty being cute. She generally makes all things better.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Poisoned Pearls Out Next Tuesday!

Next Tuesday, my novel Poisoned Pearls will be officially published and released by Book View Cafe.

I’m excited about this novel. It’s been a long, long time coming.

Background for Poisoned Pearls

This novel is, in many ways, an amalgamation of a bunch of ideas.

Some of the scenes, for example, the first scene with Cassie and the prostitute Angela, were written a really long time ago. I wrote the first version of that particular scene back in 1987. Possibly earlier – it’s tough to tell. But I have a print out of it that came from a dot matrix printer, on paper that had holes along the edges.

Chinaman Joe also came to life way back then. There’s always been a Chinaman Joe, since the very first incarnation of this story. That’s always been his name. And he’s always been this shadowy, behind the scenes character who nonetheless influences everything.

Cassie, in that original incarnation, worked at a video store that sold dirty videos. Because that’s what was really available at that point.

That story was straight SF. Cassie smoked in that incarnation, but not cigarettes. I invented a type of cigarette that wouldn’t produce any second-hand smoke.

Sometime in 1998, the concept of the novel, and the title, came into being. That’s when Hunter was born. The pearls and much of that plot line, arrived. As did the very first scene, with Kyle. The first line of chapter one. The scene with Loki doing magic in that garden-level apartment. The whole Ragnarok plot line.

So I’ve been living with many parts of this story for decades.

This novel is, in some ways, a strange amalgamation of genres as well.

It’s undeniably urban fiction, as it’s set in Minneapolis, and that city (as well as the winter) is a character. It’s a mystery, because Cassie has to figure out who is killing her friends. It’s fantasy because, hello, Odin, Loki, magic, etc. It’s also science fiction, with the pre- and post-cogs, as well as the pearls.

I’ve wanted to write this novel for a long, long, long time.

I can’t tell you how happy I am that I was finally able to write it. That I’m able to publish it, and let other people read it as well.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it.

If you’re interested in reading a bit of this novel early, here’s a link to the PDF of the prologue and first two chapters.

(If you’re really interested in reading the novel early in exchange for a review, contact me and let me know.)

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Finished!

No, I haven’t finished the new novel. Or a short story. Or even anything writing related.

I sometimes, occasionally, do things other than write.

That picture? Up there? May not look like much. But it’s 1300 squares of scrap fabric, cut into 2 7/8″ squares, that I’m going to sew together into a quilt like this:

My quilt will look different because it will have very different colors. But it will be that style.

Pretty, yes?

I haven’t allowed myself to buy any new fabric until I use up some of my existing fabric. That I can make this entire queen-sized quilt out of my existing fabric should tell you something about my stash.

But wheeeee! I finished cutting out all those ()*$%*$()!! squares!

Now I get to sew them all together. Yay?

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Audio and Price Experiments

Baker’s Dozen is now available as an audio book!

Due to the lovely, amazingly hard-working people at Book View Cafe my books are being produced as audio books.

I already have quite a few audio books done through Book View Cafe, including Paper Mage, The Raven and the Dancing Tiger, The Guardian Hound, and Siren’s Call.

I’ve been thinking a lot about pricing. On the one hand, I want to value my work and my books. On the other hand, I’d like to sell more.

So I’ve dropped the price to $2.99 on a few books, as part of an experiment. I plan on keeping that lower price to the end of the year to see what happens. All the less expensive titles have been out for more than a year.

The list!

The Jaguar and the Wolf

Caves of Buda

Zydeco Queen and the Creole Fairy Courts

The Shredded Veil Mysteries

Baker’s Dozen

The Raven and the Dancing Tiger

The Guardian Hound

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.