Maddy Barone's Blog, page 2

Tuesday Teaser 7/9/24

Hello and Happy Tuesday. My cancer is back and has spread to both lungs, so I am struggling a little. Tomorrow I am having the port back in and on Thursday I start chemo again. I REFUSE to just give up, so my goal for 2024 is to finish The Storm King. It is a fantasy romance about a woman from our time (a cancer survivor who as a teen wrote fantasy romance. Not me). What happens when she is transported from modern day Midwestern America to the very fantasy world she created? The teenaged prince she invented is real, but he’s not a teenager any more and he’s bent on conquering his enemies and punishing them for what they did to him when he was a teenager. Too bad our transplanted heroine is one of those enemies.

So to keep myself on track and get this story finished I plan to post a chapter or a portion of a chapter on Tuesdays. This has not been edited, so you may find some goofs and typos. Please excuse them and enjoy!

The Storm King

copyright Maddy Barone 2024

Chapter One

She was so close. After way too many years, she was almost done with school. Ashley let out a breath and closed her laptop before looking across the table at her best friend and roommate. “Maya, I am finally going to get my degree.”   

The sound of the coffee grinder at the other end of the coffee shop almost drowned out her words, but Maya looked over the top of her own laptop and smiled. “Yeah, you are. It’s been a long, hard road, but you are almost there, and you’ve fought like heck for it.” She gave Ashley a big grin. “After everything you’ve gone through, you deserve it.”

Tears stung Ashley’s eyes. It had been a long, hard road. She hadn’t graduated from high school until she was nineteen, hadn’t started university until she was twenty, and now would be getting her B.A. at twenty-five. At the same age, Maya was working on her doctorate.

“I’m a little old to be getting my first degree.”

Her best friend sniffed. “Ashley, you’re not old. There’s a woman in one of my classes who must be pushing sixty. I think you are amazing. Consider what you went through. A lot of people would never have gotten this far.”

Ashley glanced away, pretending to check out the coffee shop. She didn’t want to think about what she went through. Keeping up with schoolwork after being diagnosed with ALL—Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia—at fifteen had been impossible. Her normal had gone from giggling with Maya about nail polish, hairstyles, and boys to chemotherapy infusions, baldness, and bone-crushing pain. Then after a year in remission, it came back, and the treatment started all over again.

Maya pointed a finger at her, its perfectly rounded nail painted a glaring purple. “I know what you are thinking. But that is done. You beat cancer. Twice. And you’ve been cancer free for over five years. You look great.”

Ashley snorted. She looked better than she had five years ago. The weight she’d lost during her fight with leukemia was back. Sadly, it had all taken up residence in her midsection. She glanced down at her belly, mostly hidden below the table, with a sigh. At her 5-3 height, she was not exactly built like a model, and although her legs were long and slim her torso was barrel-shaped. An overweight apple, that was her.

Maya, on the other hand, was a tall blonde with sky-blue eyes and a slender, hourglass figure. Some people looked at her and saw only a pretty face and perfect figure, but she was more than that. Maya was brilliant. She was getting a Ph.D. in chemistry. Dummies didn’t get doctorates in chemistry.

Ashley sighed. Maya was beautiful enough to be a model and brilliant besides. If she wasn’t the best friend ever, Ashley would have hated her. But at fifteen, when most girls spent an hour every morning getting their hair ready for school, Ashley’s hair had fallen out in clumps from chemo. Maya had shaved her beautiful blond hair off in a show of solidarity. Best. Friend. Ever, Ashley told herself now, wrapping a lock of hair around her finger

“See?” Maya pointed at Ashley again. “Your hair is back, and it’s thicker than before. Glossy and shiny like polished walnut.”

Ashley flicked the lock of hair back over her shoulder. Her hair was medium brown, boring brown, and she usually wore it in a high ponytail that brushed her back a few inches below her shoulders. She lifted an eyebrow at her best friend. “Polished walnut?” she scoffed. “What am I? A sideboard?”

 Maya tilted her head consideringly. “No, more of a side table. A Victorian side table, all elegant curves and shiny polished carvings. You know.”

Ashley blew a raspberry. “Short and squat?”

Maya gave her a chiding look and closed her laptop. “You are pretty, and strong, and intelligent, and about to earn your bachelor’s degree. Ready for that last final?”  

“Yep.” Ashley unplugged her laptop, wrapped the cord around it, and shoved it into her backpack. A couple of history textbooks followed. She slugged back the dregs of her coffee and stood, pulling the bag over her arms and settling the familiar weight on her back. “You walking back to campus?”

“Yeah.” Maya also packed her laptop away. “I need to get back to the lab. I’ll walk with you as far as the fountain in the quadrangle.”

The two women left the coffee shop and walked the five blocks to campus. Spring in the Midwest was pretty. It sucked for people who had allergies, but luckily, neither of them did. Lawns were green, the sky was blue, the air was warm and sweetly scented from flowering bushes and trees that lined the boulevards. Ashley loved spring. She loved seeing the world come back to life after a long, cold winter. She let the scents of spring soothe her senses as their walk took them past a row of frat houses.

“Hmph. It is finals week, but the frat boys are on full display,” grumbled Maya. “And I do mean on full display.”

That was another of Ashley’s favorite parts of spring. She found a certain guilty pleasure in viewing the college boys on ‘full display’, as Maya put it, with sweat gleaming on their chests as they tossed a football back and forth

“They’re not on full display,” Ashley protested innocently. “They’re wearing shorts.”

Ashley tried to be discreet while ogling the young men playing touch football in their front yards. Of course Maya noticed. She made a choking noise. Or maybe it was a snort.

 “Hey,” Ashley said defensively. “I have some catching up to do when it comes to men.”

Maya smirked. “You like the eye candy?”

Ashley opened her eyes exaggeratedly wide. “Don’t you?”

Maya flicked a dismissive glance at the men. “I bet their IQs are smaller than the circumference of their thighs.”

“Ouch.”

“Besides, they’re too young.”

Ashley sniffed. “I’m only looking.”

“But you like them young, don’t you? I remember that fanfic you used to write.”

Ashley covered her face with one hand. “Honestly, do you have to bring that up? I was a teenager. Of course, my heroes were young. Back then I thought twenty-five was middle-aged.”

Maya laughed. “I’m just teasing. It was good. You always had the best stories on that fanfic site. Your imagination is incredible.”

It was her imagination that had gotten her through the long hours of chemo and hospital stays. She’d made up stories of warrior princes who loved their brides with fierce tenderness and knights in shining armor who rescued captive princesses. It kept her mind in a better place. But that was a long time ago. Nowadays she was too busy with school to make up stories. She waved a dismissive hand.

“No, really,” Maya insisted. “You made up entire worlds and cultures. Remember that one about the desert prince of Erabir who’d been captured and made a slave to his enemies the Thessians, and how the daughter of the Thessian governor helped him escape? It was good. I wish you had finished it.”

Ashley remembered that story fondly. It had been a favorite, but Maya was right: she hadn’t finished it. That was when the bone marrow transplant had taken over her life. Then, when she’d felt better, she’d devoted herself to catching up with schoolwork. “Maybe I’ll get back to that someday.” Remembering how the teenaged desert prince forced into slavery had sworn to love his rescuer forever made her smile. “I really did like Jerriel and Valdis.”

“Oh, yeah.” Maya fanned herself. “When the girl snuck Prince Jerriel out of town so he could get back home and she gave him her pearl necklace to remember her by? And he promised to come back and make her his princess? Swoon worthy. It only needed some hot sex to be perfect.”

Ashley touched the teardrop pearl pendant suspended from a gold chain around her neck. It had been a present from her mom and dad on her sixteenth birthday. She’d used it as a model for the one Valdis had given Jerriel in the story.

“Hot sex? Jerriel was only fourteen when he was captured and only sixteen when Valdis set him free,” she protested. “And they kissed good-bye.”

Maya flicked a dismissive finger. “You really ought to finish it. Make them older, like over eighteen. Then open the bedroom door and shine the spotlight on the bed.”

Ashley cleared her throat. “Maybe Jerriel won’t be able to wait until they get to the bed.”

“Whoo-hoo! I like it!” Maya crowed. “Now you’re talking! You have to finish that story. You’re a good writer. It makes me wonder why you decided to go for a history degree instead of creative writing.”

“Because what kind of job would I get with that degree? Besides, a history degree is more flexible. I am going on to get my master’s in library science.”

Maya tossed her a grin. “At least then you won’t be telling me about every siege in medieval history.”

Ashley stuck her tongue out. “Siege warfare is fascinating. You loved every minute of listening to me practice for my senior thesis.”

Maya made a gagging sound. Ashley laughed, too excited at the idea of being done with her undergraduate degree to be offended by the teasing.

They crossed into campus and walked along the concrete path that led to the Quadrangle near the north side of the center of campus. Ahead was the fountain, set in a sunken area dotted with benches currently filled with students taking a break between classes and finals.

Ashley recognized the four girls sitting on the edge of the fountain because they were in some of her history classes. Alex, Terri, Shelley, and Miriam were all involved in some medieval recreation group and always had interesting comments and questions in class. They were tossing coins into the fountain and laughing. School superstition said the fountain was magic and if you dropped a penny into it before a final you would get a better grade. Ashley had studied hard and felt good about her knowledge, but she dug her wallet out of her backpack and found a couple of coins.

“Seriously?” huffed Maya, following her to the rim of the fountain.

“Shut up. What can it hurt?” Ashley smiled at the four girls who shifted to make room at the fountain before sticking her chin out at Maya. “Besides, the money goes to Cancer-Free Kids. It’s a great charity.”

“Well, at least make a wish.”

“Fine, bossy lady.” Ashley closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun on her face contrasting with the cool spray of water. “I wish for a good grade and a great future.”

“And love,” Maya interjected.

She gave her best friend a sidelong glare. “And I want to meet Prince Jerriel of Erabir and live happily ever after.”

She tossed the coins in and turned to Maya. “Happy?”

“You should have wished a Jerriel for me too.”

“You have a wallet. Make your own wish.” She hoisted her backpack further up her shoulder. “See you at home tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ll get ice cream and we’ll celebrate. Good luck!”

“Thanks. See you later.”

She’d barely begun turning to go to her very last final exam when someone bumped into her so hard she stumbled and fell. Her elbow connected with the edge of the fountain in a sickening flash of pain. The sound of it hitting was a metallic clang, which made no sense, since the fountain wasn’t metal. She heard Maya scream her name. But as the pavement rushed toward her, everything flickered to black.

******

“Ash? Ash! Ashley Marie Johnson, you wake up right now!”

Aside from the pain radiating from her elbow, the first thing Ashley noticed was how cold the air was. The second thing was that the scent of flowering bushes was gone, replaced by a nauseating stench. She pushed herself off the pavement with her good arm. The pain radiating from her elbow made her cup her other hand around it. Crap! she moaned to herself. It isn’t broken, is it?

“My final,” she groaned. “I’m going to be late.”

“What final?” Maya said in an odd voice. Ashley had never heard that tone from her. Snark, happiness, excitement, sarcasm, and sadness, yes. But this flat numbness barely covering hysteria? Maya didn’t do hysteria. “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” she said with a quaver rippling through the flatness of her tone.

Ashley looked up at that. Her heart stopped in confused shock. The fountain was gone. The fresh air and sunshine were gone. Maya crouched beside her on a packed earth surface between two brick walls spaced about four feet apart. The buildings were tall enough to block most of the sun. An alley? It was filthy. There was garbage strewn all about. When she swallowed it felt like a razorblade was stuck in her throat.

“Where are we?” she demanded wildly. “How did we get here? How long was I out?”

Maya’s lush mouth was set in a flat line. “We got here only a minute ago. It’s like the concrete at the fountain collapsed under us and we fell through to … here.” She waved a hand to indicate here. “Wherever this is. We landed out there.” Another hand wave indicated somewhere past the mouth of the alley. “Since I didn’t want to get my head cut off by one of those madmen with swords, I pulled you back here.”

Madmen. Swords? Ashley stared at Maya, mouth open. The thundering noise she’d had barely noticed registered now. Horses’ hooves pounding on stone, women’s screams, men’s shouts, and the clang of metal on metal all mixed into a terrible cacophony that made no sense. She got to her knees to move closer to the mouth of the alley, and that was when she noticed she wasn’t wearing the jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt she’d put on that morning. She was wearing a long dress, like something from medieval England. It was high-necked and tight-sleeved, made of ivory silk with green embroidery at the wrists. The skirt was voluminous. Maya was wearing a similar getup but in pale blue wool.

Ashley grabbed a fistful of skirt. “What is this?” she moaned.

“No clue,” said Maya. “We had cloth on our heads, too, like veils, but I left them out there.”

‘Out there’ was past the alley. It was too much to try to figure out right now. One thing at a time, Ashley told herself. First of all, figure out where you are.  She crawled a few feet, still holding her hurt elbow against her chest, toward the mouth of the alley. The ivory dress that tangled her legs must have been beautiful once, but now it was trashed. Another thing to worry about later.

It was much brighter here at the edge of the building, and louder too. Men on horses cantered by with swords out, screaming war cries. Other men, on foot, either tried to defend themselves or flee. Either way, they were cut down. As Ashley watched, one man had his head completely severed from his neck. The head, its short blond hair covered by blood, hit the pavement and bounced toward her.

She lunged backward so fast she nearly fell over. The horseman who cut off the head watched it roll and saw her. A savage grin contorted his face as he raised his bloody sword and kicked his horse into a run, right at the alley.

Maya’s clutching hand yanked her to her feet. “Run!” she screamed.

Ashley hoisted up her dirty skirt and ran as fast as she could the opposite way down the alley. That stupid dress did its best to trip her, but she powered through. The horseman was right behind them. The only thing that saved them was the narrowness of the alley, which barely allowed the horse to pass and did not give much room for the rider to swing his sword.

The two women burst out of the alley into another street, where another dozen men on horseback all suddenly focused on them. Well, almost all. A couple were in the middle of assaulting a pair of screaming women who had their dresses pushed up to their waists. Ashley slowed, panting and staring in shock. She had studied history for more than four years, learning about various wars. Rape and looting were part of war. She knew that. Intellectually, she knew that, but she’d never seen it, never had a front row seat to the atrocities.

Numbly, she stared at the horrifying scene. I’ve gone insane, she concluded. That was the only explanation for this. I must have cracked my head when I fell against the fountain and now I’m in the hospital having a nightmare.

A really intense nightmare, in technicolor and with surround sound. With Maya holding her by her good wrist and her bad elbow holding the skirt against her waist, she couldn’t pinch herself. But she wanted to. She really, really wanted this to be a dream.

“Don’t stop! Run!” screamed Maya beside her.

“Run where?” she screamed back.

Retreat was impossible. They couldn’t go back to the alley. Ashley could swear she felt the horse’s breath on the back of her neck. The horseman behind them screamed a war cry practically in her ear. She turned to look up at him. Maya moved so they were back-to-back. Ashley stood staring at the guy who had followed them down the alley, and Maya faced the others.

This is it, Ashley thought. After years of fighting leukemia, she was going to die by having her head lopped off with a sword.

Lobo’s Mate is Live!

At last! At last! Lobo’s Mate is available everywhere! Or at least, most places. Like:

Amazon.com

Amazon.ca

Amazon.uk

Amazon.au

Also at:

Barnes and Noble

Apple iBooks

Smashwords

I would love for you to pick up a copy. I have priced it at $1.99 for the first three months. Of course, some of you will have a copy already from the newsletter giveaway in December. This is the same story so no need to double up. I will be working on a paperback version in a few weeks and hope to have it ready to go around May 15 so I can have a few copies at Lori Foster’s Reader & Author Gt Together in June.

Happy Reading!

Lobo’s Mate

Coming from Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, etc, on April 5, 2024!

Lobo is socially awkward lone wolf who never expected his wolf to choose a mate. Gen is woman who thought she was the only survivor of a plane crash that threw her fifty years into a post-apocalyptic future where women are rare and obliged to marry.

When a local rancher gets pushy about marriage, Gen looks desperately for an escape. Lobo offers to take her to his cousin’s Pack, where other women from the crash lives. That sounds good to her. He might stumble over his words when talking to her, but he has no trouble scaring off her would-be suitors. But what does he want in exchange for his protection?

Emotional Support Chicken!

Is that a crazy title for a blog post or what? LOL More on that down below.

I have been hard at work getting my books back up. So far Sleeping With the Wolf, Wolf’s Glory, Wolf Tracker, Wolf’s Oath, Sherry’s Wolf, and Eddie’s Prize have been reviewed and put up at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and other places. Tonight I loaded Ellie’s Wolf and Wolf’s Vengeance up and they should be available soon. And!! I commissioned professional cover art for Lobo’s Mate and I got the mock up. It is sooo nice! I will share when it is final.

You know, as I was reviewing the manuscripts I was struck by how good I thought every single one was. I don’t want to sound big-headed, but they are good! Not great, like some of my favorite authors are, but good. Thank you to everyone who read them!

So. The Emotional Support Chicken. There is a pattern on Ravelry that you can knit and stuff, and it is a chicken. The first time I saw it I thought it was stupid and not anything I would want. But the more I saw it the more I liked it. I saw one that another writer friend had made and I decided it was about the cutest thing ever. And the brouhaha with my old church has left me feeling a bit bruised, so maybe an emotional support chicken would be good for me? I am about 10% done since my knitting time has been a bit scanty due to the day job and then working on the backlist to re-publish.

Here in North Dakota we’ve barely had winter. This has been the warmest winter on record. But of course this is still March in North Dakota so we are expecting a storm starting tomorrow night and running through Monday night. Snow fall of 6″-12″ (15-30 cm) is expected, and of course there will be wind. I may need to stay home from church on Sunday. You know what that means? Yes, READING time!

The Dakotas and Minnesota aren’t the only places expecting a winter storm. I hope wherever you are, you will have a lovely weekend with lots of fun and some good books to read.

Love,

Maddy

March Update

Photo by my friend Jon Fiskr Larsen, taken too young by cancer.

For the last six weeks I have been swamped by anger and bitterness and hurt while I tried to come to grips with my church situation. It has been difficult, but I have come out the other side with my faith intact and in some ways even stronger. I have found an Evangelical Free church in the neighboring city that I like a lot. The music is good, and the pastors are preaching through the gospel of Mark, and the people are friendly.

I still occasionally feel some hurt and anger toward my old church, but less and less often. I think they are wrong, but I don’t believe they meant to hurt me by telling me my books are sinful and I am leading readers to to sin and hell. Sin is sin, whether I am writing porn or committing murder. Sin is wrong and should be confronted and stopped. I don’t think they handled it well, but they are doing what they believe is right.

I have been going through my books to fix any typos and I am struck anew by something that is similar in nearly all the books: the heroes are tender, respectful, and loving with their mates. The love scenes are not for titillation; they help the reader see the love between the hero and heroine. The stories are not pornography.

As I said, I am going through my books in preparation for them to go back up at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and other online retailers. I used to have my books in Amazon Kindle Unlimited, but I am going to take the opportunity to have them everywhere. We’ll see how they do. If they sell well, I will keep them at all retailers. If they don’t sell as well as I’d like I may put them back in Kindle Unlimited, which means they are available only through Amazon. We see how things look by Labor Day.

So far, Sleeping With the Wolf and Wolf’s Glory are available now at most retailers. I plan to have Wolf Tracker, Wolf’s Oath and Sherry’s Wolf published by Sunday. If things continue to go on schedule Eddie’s Prize will be up by March 17.

It’s kinda big-headed for me to say it, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed re-reading these stories. It’s been quite a while since I wrote them and I’d forgotten so much. Taye is such a good man. And Tracker! Boy, I just LOVE Tracker! I’m looking forward to reading the rest.

That’s the update for now. I just finished reading A Wolf So Grim and Mangy by Caroline Noe. If you, like me, have some gray hair and aches and pains that come with age, and you enjoy a little humor with your romance, you might really enjoy that book too. Here is a link if you want to check it out: https://amzn.to/3PdN898

Until next time, HAPPY READING!!

Maddy’s Update

Some people have asked what is going on with my books being taken down. Here is a (not so) brief explanation. On the morning of Saturday 1/27/24 I received an email from my pastor and the elder of my church. It was lengthy and detailed.

One line was: “When I (pastor) looked into what you were writing it grieved me. Your books glorify all kinds of sexual sin and describe sexual acts in explicitly pornographic detail.” And another was: “We urge you to no longer engage in the writing, reading, or spread of sexual content causing others to also stumble and fall into the sins of lust and sexual impurity. You have profited off of the sale of this material and have willingly put it in front of people, tempting them to sin and to lust as you have. It is a serious thing to lead others into sin and away from Christ.”

And what I needed to do: “Repentance looks like the following:
1. Confess your sin to the Lord and repent of it.
2. Cease selling and profiting off of this sin and take down or destroy any of your work that is sexual in nature and instead use your gifts, talents, and abilities as a writer to produce works that honor the Lord and do not glorify sin.
3. Continue to invest in your spiritual health by attending the ministries of the church and building relationships with godly people. Seek godly counsel and accountability from your sisters in Christ and others in the church.
4. Provide the church with a new email address for you that is not related to Maddy Barone. “

Before I go any further, I want to make a confession of faith. Feel free to skip down a paragraph if you don’t want to read about my faith.

I believe in God. I believe that I and everyone else is a sinner. No one can say they have never broken a single one of the 10 commandments even once. Our screw ups separate us from God. I believe that God loves us and wants us to be UNseparated from Him, but He is holy and cannot bear sin. So He made a plan so people can be in a relationship with him. He sent Jesus, who is God himself, to die so our sins are paid for. The Jewish people made sacrifices at the temple to pay for sin. They would find the most perfect lamb to sacrifice, but that sacrifice had to be performed on a continuing basis. Jesus was THE perfect lamb, the lamb of God, and His sacrifice was the last one required for forgiveness of sin. Anyone who believes they are a sinner and is sorry for it and asks Jesus to forgive them is a Christian. I am a Christian and I believe that Christians are called to be part of a local body of fellow believers.

Okay. So I got that email and was shocked. Horrified. Angry. So angry. And scared. I love my church. I have been there for more than 20 years. They have been utterly supportive of me while I battled cancer. I am not done battling cancer. How could I do it on my own? On that first day I was willing to do ANYTHING to keep my church family. I rushed to take down my books. I made announcements on my Facebooks pages. I made a statement on my website.

But the more I did, the more I realized I wasn’t doing it to please God. I was doing it so I could stay in my church. I do not think my books are pornography. I think they are love stories featuring one man and one woman in a monogamous permanent relationship. To agree with the demands my pastor and elder are making would be like agreeing that the sun rises in the west. It would be lying.

So I have left my church. It broke my heart. I’m not angry now, only very, very sad. Still a little disbelieving, actually. (Like HOW could this have happened? I have been going to that church for half my life, and I’ve been published for 14 of those years, but this is just happening NOW? Why?) It’s like I lost my whole family in a car crash or in some expected way. I am grieving. I have spent hours in prayer and tears. This was not an easy decision. Maddy Barone is not just my pen name. My SCA friends have known me as Maddy since 1998. How could I cut them loose because of a name?

I have decided to take some time reviewing my books for typos or minor updates and then put them back up, hopefully by April 1. So that is where I am at. I apologize for my hasty de-listing of my books. I was drowning in panic and denial when I did it and it confused some of you. I am sorry.

Happy New Year!

I won’t blather on too long in this post, since you’ve probably read a ton of these types of post over the past few days. But here we go:

This is the time of the year when many of us look back over the last year and see where we are compared to where we started. Well, last night I looked back on 2023 and darned if I know where I am compared to where I was! In a way 2023 was just a holding pattern for me. Getting scans and then waiting. And Waiting. And WAITING! LOL I am not the most patient person , can you tell? I spent much of my time knitting, quilting and reading.

My writing mojo pretty much fizzled out for much of the year. However, after I finished my radiation in October I decided to make a push to finish a short story I had started a couple of years ago. It takes place in December, and ends on Christmas Eve so I thought putting it out just before Christmas would be nice. I released Lobo’s Mate for free in my newsletter in December 22. It will remain free at THIS LINK for another few days. I hope to have professional cover art done and I will release it on Amazon sometime in the next few months.

I am not sure what 2024 holds for me. I have a fantasy romance started. I’ve had it started for some time. I am just not sure if it is any good or if I should try something else. Finishing Lobo’s Mate has given me a bit of enthusiasm for writing again. We’ll see what happens!

I hope you all have a wonderful 2024!

HAPPY READING!!

Lobo’s Mate

Hello! For some time I’ve been playing with the idea for a story for Shadow’s cousin Lobo/Laura. Maybe you remember him? He and his faithful Beagle first made an appearance in Wolf’s Glory. We saw him again at the end of Gina’s Wolf, and there he had a mate. So how did he meet his mate? Well, tomorrow night you can learn all about it!

Lobo’s Mate After the Crash 4.5 is a 30,000 word novella that takes place between Eddie’s Prize and Ellie’s Wolf. I am sending it out in my newsletter tomorrow night. This is a freebie that I wrote as a thank you for you, my readers. If you’d like to read it and are not signed up for my newsletter there is still time to sign up (see the image at the right). The newsletter will go out tomorrow night around supper time. The holidays get so busy, but maybe you can sneak in a few hours to read.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday!

An Update From Maddy

A sight Lobo and Gen saw on their trip to Kearney -Photo by Jon Fiskr Larsen

So… back at the end of October I promised you an update. This is long and if you don’t want to read a description of my cancer journey, you should skip to the WHAT AM I DOING NOW? section at the end. Everyone else, buckle up.

Some of you may know that I was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer in July of 2020. We did infusion chemo, followed by radiation and oral chemo, and then surgery to remove the tumor, a section of my colon, and some of my lymph nodes. It appeared to be successful and I was deemed NED (No Evidence of Disease) as of March 2021. Very excited and feeling great, I started writing a fantasy romance called The Storm King. Quarterly CT and MRI scans in June, September and December looked good so the scans were extended to every 6 months instead of every 3 months.

In early 2022 I started feeling tired again. I put the Storm King aside. The scans in June 2022 showed Cancer had returned and was growing in my liver. Now I was Stage 4, colorectal cancer with mets to liver. That was treated with ablation in August 2022. They shot microwaves into the tumor and ‘cooked’ it. The scan in September looked good. I started a little freebie novella about Lobo and his mate, thinking I would put it out for Christmas 2022. Scans in December 2022 still looked good. I was once again NED.

But I didn’t feel well. I was told that was normal. My body had been through a lot so it would take some time for me to get back to “normal”. For instance, the chemo from 2 years ago had given me neuropathy. My foot from the ball to the toes were numb, and so were my fingertips. It’s hard to type when you can’t feel your fingers on the keys. My deadline for Lobo’s Mate came and went so I put it away.

In March 2023 I went to have my regular quarterly scans and they found a tiny spot in my lung they thought was suspicious. Too small to biopsy, we decided to take a wait and watch approach and see what the June scans showed. In June the spot had grown, so it was deemed to be cancer and I was sent to a radiologist to set up radiation for the lung. However, he detected a second, smaller spot in the different location in the same lung. He didn’t want to do radiation and then find out that more nodules showed up later. So we decided to wait until the September scans to see if any more spots showed up.

I HATE waiting. The summer of 2023 was miserable for me. I kept imagining the worst case scenario, where the September scans would show my lungs loaded with sinister little spots with glowing red eyes and fangs ready to devour me. But the scans showed only those two spots, slightly bigger, but just those two.

In October 2023 I had the radiation. It was not painful, it didn’t take long, and it was only 5 treatments. I was EXHAUSTED. I was utterly exhausted until about November 3. It was like I turned a corner then. I cleaned, I was social, I stayed up until my usual bedtime! The next scans in January 2024 will show if radiation was effective.

I don’t know what the future holds. Maybe the cancer is still growing in my lungs. Maybe it was come back in the liver. Maybe this is it and I am truly NED. God knows and time will tell.

WHAT AM I DOING NOW?

I have picked up Lobo’s story again. I love Lobo. He’s not good with words, but he’s found his mate and in true Wolf Clan tradition, he is going to protect her and help her even if she never accepts his mate claim. And she needs his help. She’s been living mostly on her own for the past three years since the plane crash, and a local farmer is done waiting for her consent to marry him. At 17,548 words, I am 3/4 done with the rough draft. My personal deadline for the rough draft to be complete is 12/2. Then it goes off to the beta readers while I play with cover art. Then I make revisions, format it and send it out in my newsletter by 12/22/23. I do not plan to publish it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. This will be an entirely free novella just for my readers. I am not putting in a ton of history about the plane crash and what life is like in 2067 because only people who have read some of the other books will be reading it. Probably. I am writing this for you as a thank you for reading my stories.

I will be back in a few weeks for my annual Christmas Stocking Giveaway!

Happy Halloween!!

It has been a long, long time since I posted, and I’ve had a lot going on. I will post again soon to catch you all up with what is up with me. But meanwhile I will give you a little Halloween shortie story I wrote about Glory and Shadow about a year after Wolf’s Glory ended.

Here it is. Enjoy!

https://maddybarone.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Glory-Shadow-1-year-later.pdf.docx