Kaje Harper's Blog, page 36

Hidden Wolves short story 1.15 is available

You saw the gorgeous cover last week; Unsettled Interlude is now available for free download here on Goodreads from its book page, and also on Smashwords in multiple formats.

At 11,000 words, this is about a double-length expansion of the short story "Interlude" that I've had on my blog and website. Don't read this before the first Hidden Wolves book, Unacceptable Risk, because of spoilers. If you've read Risk, then this story adds an extra glimpse into the relationship between Simon and Paul, right after the end of Book 1 and before Book 2. It will be a step back in time, for those who've also read the second book, Unexpected Demands. But I hope you still enjoy it.

The next free short story is coming soon. I hope to have the cover in a few days, and to release it in a week or so. That one is Unwanted Appeal - 2.5, and features Aaron and Zach.

I've also finished the 99K rough draft of my free novel for the M/M group, and now I'm turning back to writing Hidden Wolves Book 3. Fun!

A new cover and upcoming stories

Today I finished the rough draft of the free story I'm writing for the M/M Romance Group's summer "Love Has No Boundaries" event. It's going to be a somewhat angsty fantasy novel (over 90K because I'm addicted to writing.) I can't tell you the title, since the group likes to play guessing games with that, but it will be a summer release. I'll be able to give you some more information about it later. There's still a fair bit of editing to be done, but it feels good to have the draft finished.

Now that I've written that story out of my brain, I'm going back to the two Hidden Wolves short stories I was working on. The first one, Unsettled Interlude - Hidden Wolves 1.15 is a rewrite and expansion of the little short I had on my website (Interlude), about Paul and Simon. I just got the cover for it. Isn't this gorgeous?



This is by a new cover artist for me - Ren Brennan. I love the look. In fact, I need to polish up the story to match quality of the cover. Look for a mid-April release for this story. Ren is also doing a cover for the upcoming second story, Unwanted Appeal - Hidden Wolves 2.5 , featuring Aaron and Zach. That one should be out in late April or early May.

(I do want to say that Enny Kraft generously offered to do covers for these and she has done wonderful artwork for me on several of my other freebies, but Ren had also offered first - and I love the result too. An embarrassment of riches to have more than one excellent cover artist doing my stories.)

After the short stories, I'll be writing Wolves #3 and hopefully editing Life Lessons #4. My editor for that is pretty busy, so edits are a bit slow. I'll let you know as soon as I have any clue about release dates for it.

Looking ahead

I haven't posted for a while, partly because I've been busy with real life and partly because I haven't released anything new. In the past I've usually had an impending release to blog about, so it's been a bit odd so far this year to have nothing. But I thought I'd let you know a few plans going forward.

The fourth Life Lessons book was accepted by MLR Press, and is in editing. I can't yet predict a release date or even a release month, but you can think good thoughts for it. Editing is a bit backed up at the moment.

I'm hoping to release two short stories in the Hidden Wolves series soon as freebies. One is an expansion of Interlude, retitled Unsettled Interlude , about Simon and Paul between the existing two books. Although the original scrap of story has been up on my website, I'm doing a bigger rewrite and then will have it for download as well. The second story comes after the events in Unexpected Demands with a look at Zach and Aaron. I'm doing proofing and covers, and hope to have those for you soon.

My latest distraction has been a story I took on for the Goodreads M/M group's 2013 writing event, Love Has No Boundaries. I really love writing stories for picture prompts and was sucked in by one that says,

Dear Author --

For so long, years that seemed to go on forever, I couldn't bear to be touched. I put up not just walls but whole concrete bunkers to keep people out -- not just emotionally, but physically as well. Sure, I was alone. But I felt safe. Only, after awhile, I wasn't sure any longer whether a totally "safe" life was really worth living. But I was still too afraid to reach out. I started to think about a way out -- a way out of living, that is.

Then someone came along. Someone...completely unexpected. How do I explain him? I can't. But he wouldn't give up on me, and he never believed in walls.


I was in a mood to write fantasy, so that's what I've been doing. Working on this story is the perfect distraction (and I've passed 40,000 words in a couple of weeks.) It will release for the event sometime in the summer - June through August. Hopefully you'll enjoy it.

I've also registered for the Gay Rom Lit retreat in Atlanta this October. I'll be going as an official author this time, which means swag and a book signing and some kind of panel, oh my. But last year was so much fun that I'm looking forward to it. For now, it's far enough off that I'm not focused on it. I do hope to see some of you there, though. Last I looked there were still about 25 reader slots available. I'm planning to have an extroverted friend along to push me into going to events, so I may be more visible than last year. Hopefully this will be a good thing.

I'll post again when the short stories are closer to being available. Thanks for sticking around while I get the writing back in gear.

Win Rebuilding Year in paperback - redux

For the month of Februaury, I ran a giveaway drawing through Goodreads for a couple of paper copies of The Rebuilding Year and they've pulled two winners out of the hat. Out of more than 750 entires - wow!

I had a link on my Wordpress blog too, and someone there pointed out to me that you had to be a member of Goodreads to enter the drawing. People who were not, couldn't get into the link. Now if you're reading this, you know joining GR isn't hard. But then neither is getting on Facebook, and I've chosen not to do that. Some folks don't want to be here. And really, seeing 750 people in the drawing made me realize that my most consistent readers were kind of lost in that group. (Free books have a rather general appeal.)

So I decided to do a drawing for one more paperback copy for the folks who bother to read my blog. It's only slightly tricky. DON'T COMMENT HERE TO WIN. Although you're welcome to comment, just in order to comment and say something :). Go to my blog post - The Rebuilding Year in paperback and add a comment there if you want to enter the drawing. Wordpress saves your email, so you don't need to put that in your comment - just say hi or something. I will draw for one more winner of a signed paperback copy after noon March 4th.

And once my copies actually arrive (Grrr for slow mail) I will send one out to the lucky winner.

ETA: The contest is now closed (and I got the books - yay!) The winner was Aoife. Thanks to everyone who entered.

Going For Gold - giveaway

Right now the review site Joyfully Jay is doing a book giveaway for their "Jock Week". They have 64 books as prizes, with many wonderful titles from top M/M authors. Among the prizes are two copies of the anthology Going for Gold: M/M Olympic Anthology which contains my story Tumbling Dreams about a gymnast aiming for the Olympics, along with 7 other great stories. You can enter your name and top choices at Joyfully Jay Jock Week Giveaway. Good luck!

**to be clear - Comments here do not qualify for the prizes - you have to go to the review site for that**

A cover for Sole Support

I now have the cover for Sole Support from Samhain Publishing:



He can find a use for his lover’s hands…except when he needs help the most.

Blurb:

Kellen is short on cash—at least until his first novel starts to sell—but he has plenty of friends. None of them, unfortunately, share his love of books. For that he turns to IM chats with Mike from his online book group.

Though he manages to coax the shy, socially inept pathologist into a real-time meeting, Kellen has no intention of letting his new friend become more than a casual lover. Shaky finances and ailing mother aside, self-sufficiency is Kellen’s prime directive.

Mike considers himself a nerd of the highest order—short, bespectacled, prone to blurting out the wrong thing at the worst possible time. Meeting Kellen face to face is the biggest risk of his life, and he wonders if they’ll get more body parts together than just their faces.

First meeting leads to first date—first everything for Mike—and soon Kellen’s faced with breaking his just-friends-with-benefits rule. Yet as his elderly mother wanders deeper into senility, Kellen wonders if it’s better to lean on Mike rather than fall.

Sooo... That's the next book (unless MLR happens to move with blinding speed on Life Lessons #4 which I just submitted.)
Publication is set for June 4th, 2013.

Line edits are done and it's off to the proofreader. All 118,000 words. This book is dedicated to my mother, whose inevitably losing battle with Alzheimer's has informed and inspired it. The story was a little tough to write, and even harder to judge objectively, so I'll hold my breath for the next 4 months (metaphorically, because you know I really have no super-powers) until I see what people think of Mike, Kellen and their families.

The Rebuilding Year in paperback

My stand-alone contemporary romance The Rebuilding Year which released in ebook format last March, is now available from Samhain in paperback format (and is currently significantly discounted at several retailers, including at Samhain's own site.) If you're not a big fan of ebooks, you can now hold this one in your hands.

I'm doing a giveaway for a couple of signed copies on Goodreads via their giveaway program (I hope - I've never tried it before.) The contest will run through Feb 28th. We'll see how that works out.

I'll add a link here when the giveaway goes live. You can also buy the book directly from Samhain and from many other online booksellers.

ETA - here's the link for the giveaway: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...

I made the author list at Jessewave!

I try not to post about good reviews and making best-of lists too much, because the books should stand for themselves with everyone making their own judgments. So I hesitated to post this, right after the bit about the M/M group awards. Which I am still really thrilled about because... yeah, a whole bunch of readers voted for my books. *Big grin*

But this blew me away, and I am so chuffed. (Isn't that a great word? - I love British slang.) Anyway, I'm so delighted by the fact that out of fifty authors who got nominations for Favorite M/M Author of 2012 on Reviews by Jessewave, I made the top-five list and got into the voting. And I already have some votes!!

That's just... so cool. Wonderful and exciting and a bit humbling as well, that people are expressing that kind of enthusiasm, not just for one of my books but for the whole of my work so far. (And a big thanks to Josh Lanyon for being out of the running this year, or I'd have been number six - still cool, but not in the vote. Nonetheless, I'm glad Josh is writing again this year and look forward to his new books.) Anyway, this is not intended to be a bid for votes, because seriously I've been writing for less than two years and there's Amy Lane *fangirl squee here* and Jordan Castillo Price, Abi Roux, and Harper Fox of the amazing lyrical prose. Just being in their company is amazing.

In these last two years, that have been personally tough, my writing success continues to amaze and sustain me, giving me so many different forms of affirmation. Thank you all.

M/M Romance Group Member Choice Awards

The M/M Romance Group had their second annual Member Choice Awards announcement this morning. These awards are always fun, because it's not just a few knowledgeable individuals rating the books, but votes from the people who count most - readers, like the 9000+ who make up the group. These awards mean a lot.

I had a bunch of nominations this year. (Okay, I did count them - 36.) Each of those was a gift, of someone saying they liked my work (or me as an author :) enough to put me on a best-of list. So very cool. But the categories were very full of lots of wonderful books, so I wasn't expecting much in the final vote.

I'm delighted to say that two of my books did win awards:

The Rebuilding Year was voted a 3rd (tied) for Best Friends-to-Lovers Story and 3rd (tied) for Best Gay/Out for You Story.

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Into Deep Waters received a 2nd place for Best Free Story, 3rd for Best Historical and 3rd for Best Tearjerker.

One thing I found both amusing and a little cool about my "Tearjerker" nominations was that the three scenes I had nominated, from two different books, were noted for happy tears. The scenes were two weddings and a family acceptance scene. I like thinking that my books cause good tears. Because I do want the joy to go as deep as the hurt when I write, and that showed some readers agreed. So cool.

Thanks to everyone who voted in the Awards. It says something good about the genre that we had so many excellent stories available to nominate in each category, and so many readers interested in voting. I definitely have new books to move up my To Be Read list.

Congratulations to all the other winners, and indeed to all the nominees who may not have reached the top three in the vote count, but whose work made readers say, "Damn that's good - it belongs on this list of the best in M/M."

So... yeah, I never can write anything short but I think that's everything. LOL. THANK YOU .

-Kaje

The book that is my baby...

Brandon Shire, author of several acclaimed books including Afflicted, invited me to come visit his blog and talk about which of my books is my baby. You know, the story that as an author you secretly favor over the others, (although we don't tell them that,) and had fun writing, and hope the cruel world is good to. That book.

So I did, and the post is on Brandon Shire's website here.