The story of a story, part II: "To Hell and Back Again," here at last

"It used to be, if you couldn't get the Sibyl to show you where the golden bough was, you had to kill sixty cattle," Morris said, grinning, "but nowadays we sacrifice a pomegranate—much tidier."

"And better for the karma," Cathleen muttered.

"Usually we don't mess about with this stuff," Morris said, switching into a more serious mode and waving a hand at the bowl and the knife—"usually we just walk. But this is one of the big ones, and you have to—er—knock first."

—from "To Hell and Back Again...With a Little White Dog" by E. M. Epps

I promised a couple of days ago that I'd explain why I was taking so many pictures of pomegranates. And here's your answer: because my novella needed a cover.

I'm going to tell you with complete immodesty that this story, "To Hell and Back Again...With a Little White Dog" makes me happy. Tolstoy? No. But I love it. It's got a spunky young magician who bit off a little more than she could chew; a rather Victorian post-Victorian hero; quirky magical experts who make me laugh; bits of Greek mythology twisted off-kilter; and a cute dog. When traveling to Hell, don't forget the dog, okay? It's important....

You know how, in press releases, authors and agents and publishers always say "I'm so excited to be able to share this with you"? Well...maybe you don't know, if you don't work in publishing, or in a used bookstore where lots of publishing-industry letters fall out of books. But that's what they all say. Every. Single. One. Trust me. And that's what I'm going to say, too; and mean it. Here we go.

I'M SO EXCITED TO BE ABLE TO SHARE THIS WITH YOU.

Finally.

If you're at all intrigued, you can read the beginning for free over on Amazon. Even if you don't have a Kindle, no worries, you can read a Kindle book on a PC, Mac, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad or Android. Even my mother can do it, bless her.

Ordinarily, I prefer to read on that stuff called "paper," of course, but as this is a novella (sort of a plus-size short story) rather than a novel, printing and binding it on its own wouldn't be terribly cost-effective. If there's enough demand, I may offer that in the future. I do definitely intend to offer this story in other digital forms at some later point, so you could, for example, read it on a Nook. If you would like to be updated when that happens, subscribe to my blog feed or like my Facebook page.

Actually, you should like my Facebook page no matter what, since you'll hear about all the cool stuff first. Like the occasional free promotion. Hmmm.

Anyway: I hope you like the story! Please share this around on Facebook, Twitter, or to your fantasy-loving friends.