C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 18

a rather lovely day

Today has been a rather lovely day. A long-time reader whom I’ve corresponded with for years is in Ireland, and we met for breakfast, which was a genuine delight. Even though she’s still mad at me for something I wrote in the Walker Papers, and took the chance to tell me I’m not yet forgiven. But I also told her a couple of SECRETS, so we were all even in the end, or something. *laughs*

I brought her a copy of GLADIATOR TIGER, which she had not known was dedicated to her, so that was quite a lot...

Marketing Monday: Bewitching Benedict

today I’m going to talk about BEWITCHING BENEDICT, which is a Regency romance with (*gasp*) no magic, despite the title. :)

I’d been reading lots and lots of MC Beaton’s Regency romances, and I asked my agent at the time if there was still a market for Regencies, because I thought maybe I could write one. He said yes, if I wrote him a charming piece of confectionary, he could definitely sell it.

Well, I *did* write a charming piece of confectionary, but he couldn’t sell it. I was told why at the...

Ask the Author: writing for Zoe Chant

Ask the Author – the Question: I am curious about how you got in on the Zoe Chant action. And how exactly does it work when multiple authors write under a single pen name?

Hah! I got in on it because I have a friend who writes for Zoe and she spent years trying to get me to apply to write for them. Eventually I did. And while that sounds easy enough on the surface, it took me two rewrites of one book and then another entire book entirely to actually manage to write A Zoe Chant Novel, instead of ...

Picoreview: Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre

Picoreview: Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre – this was great fun.

It *looked* like a movie where Jason Statham got to be funny again, and after his magnificent turn in SPY, I really wanted to see him get a chance to be funny again. He was not AS funny in this as he was in SPY, but he was pretty funny. :)

This was kind of like Guy Ritchie said “Okay, fine, I’m not going to get to do a sequel to MAN FROM UNCLE, so I’m just gonna…file some serial numbers off and make my own version, kinda.” It’s ...

new Old Races short story!

I have a new Old Races story out in an anthology! Matryoshka, in ARTIFICE & CRAFT is now available!

An excerpt follows:

***

The largest matryoshka doll was ugly as sin, and precious beyond gold.

It lay in Janx’s hoard, buried by jewels, by precious metals, by the detritus of time, forgotten even by the dragonlord until a ghost made a wish, and the world began to crack.

Within it sat a second doll, half its size, rattling in its outer ebony carving when it moved at all. Now the two pulsed, an irr...

Picoreview: Barbie

Picoreview: Barbie – I went to Barbie yesterday and left emotionally compromised. It was amazing. I had no idea Helen Mirren was narrating, and she’s incredibly funny. Margot Robbie is perfect, America Ferrera made me want to stand up and cheer, and this is the first movie I’ve ever seen that I liked Ryan Gosling in.

Also there were so many people in pink at the cinema!!!! Not just women, either! I haven’t seen that many men in pink since the 80s!

It was not, tbh, the movie I expected. IDK WHA...

Ask the Author: genres I’d like to write in

The Question: Are there any genres in which you’d like to write (that you’ve not written in already)?

Once upon a time the answer to this question was “cozy mysteries!” but since I’ve been writing the Dublin Driver series for a while now, it’s less of a pointed answer. :)

Genres, wow, well, actually yes! Having spent the past several years learning to write romance novels (which was NOT an easy task!), I’d really love to try writing romantic suspense. I have a pile of research novels to read for...

journey vs destination

I’ve had a perfectly lovely conversation with my dad about the journey vs the destination.

This was based around a couple of things: Dad wanting to visit European capitals and also do a fundraiser around walking across them, and my long-held desire to bike across America.

I’ve been working on myself on that topic, because even in concept, it’s hard to not think about the DESTINATION as the GOAL: getting each leg of the journey done, biking however many miles a day is necessary to accomplish that...

Ask The Author: magic systems, sorta

I am implementing an almost-certain-to-be-erratic Friday Blog Post based on reader questions! Today’s question is a very, very old one:

“What’s the most difficult part when constructing a system of magic for a world?”

That is a Very Good Question.

So, like, let’s take the Walker Papers and the Negotiator Trilogy, which are my two longest/best known serieseses.

You would not *believe* how many books I read about shamanism, animism, and Native American cultures while preparing to write the Walker ...

Launch Day: POLAR HEART

Today POLAR HEART, very long-awaited sequel to my first ever paranormal romance, is finally available!

This funny little bit is the moment polar bear shifter Isaiah realizes he *could* have had a Just One Bed scenario with his fated mate Davinda…

Wildlife photographer Davinda Jackson thinks she’s seen everything… until the polar bear she’s taking pictures of turns into a man right in front of her. Thrown heart-first into a world of shifters she never imagined existed, in a small town she only ...