First Chapter of Lord of Opium

It's been a while, but I've been struggling with publishing the new adult book, A New Year's Tale. Proofreading took weeks, going over the same material again and again. I wanted a print on demand edition for those who don't use ebooks (or who don't like them). It should be available on Amazon in a week or so. The bad news is that I'm required to charge $15. 50. At that price I don't make any profit. The publisher CreateSpace does, and of course they need money for actually printing and mailing it.

Harold thought the ebook would do better if we charged $2.99 and made it free to Premier Kindle readers. It didn't. As soon as I can I'll drop the price to $.99 again. The whole point is to get people to read the book. It means a lot to me.

Now I have some good news. Angel Garcia, this is for you. You asked for the first chapter of The Lord of Opium, and I asked the publisher whether this was legal for me to give away. They have agreed to print the first chapter on the following site: www.facebook.com/HouseoftheScorpion It might not be up yet, but will be in the next few days. Of course I have to warn you, Angel, that after reading the first chapter you are going to want the second. You can't eat just one peanut after all.

It is spring here at last and the animals are waking up. We started feeding the birds because the winter was so cold and they were struggling. We were warned not to do this because spilled birdseed attracts mice and mice attract RATTLESNAKES. But I couldn't bear to watch the poor little creatures peck at the frozen birdbath any longer. Now I have two suet blocks, one for big and one for little birds, a hanging feeder for everyone and a hummingbird feeder. Hummingbirds are extremely aggressive, as little animals often need to be. They fight constantly with each other and dive bomb me when I go out to give them more sugar water. Just once did they seem to all get along, probably because they were too thirsty to fight.