Review of Alondra's Experiments, by Loren Rhoads.

Alondra’s Experiments: http://amzn.to/2Bv7Cor

Alondra is a young witch who travels the world fighting monsters.  Of course she meets men along the way.  In this collection, she hooks up with a vampire, combines absinthe and alchemy in Prague, and finds the limits of what she will do for love in the final story, which is called Valentine.

My review:

This is the first collection in the Alondra Stories series. Alondra is a young witch living in modern times. Each story in this series is a chapter in her life.  They are told with rich description, emotion and magic.

First is Shattered Rose, which gives a dream like view of a San Francisco night. Alondra is a young woman in love. Her boyfriend is a 300-year-old vampire. Alondra loves Jordan, but she wonders if their love will last centuries.  This story is lovely and romantic with a dash of spice, and blood. I love it.

Next is Catalyst, which finds Alondra a bit older, isolated and in mourning for her mentor, who raised her. Victor is not dead yet, is determined to find a cure for his mortality. She is in Oslo, preforming Alchemy. One vicious winter night, she leaves her work in search of other people. She meets a fellow practitioner who claims to know how to help her attain her goal. Alondra's desperation to stave off the inevitable, and her drive to do something, even sacrifice herself to save her parent is heartbreaking. It's something that almost all of us face. Also, the magic is beautifully written. 

Last is Valentine. Alondra is still on a quest to save her mentor. She has been driven to a dark decision: to save a life, she must take a life. She tracks an immortal whose heart, she believes, will cure Victor. This story takes place in Oslo. Alondra seduces the immortal, Simon, but it doesn't go as planned. Again, I loved the beautiful description here, and the loneliness shared by the characters.

I'll be honest, this is just a fraction of what's good in these stories. And the best part is, there are more. One and Two are available on Amazon right now, and I think there are more planned. Because they follow a single main character they are less like traditional short stories and more like serial chapters of a book, much like Charles DeLint's Newford stories. This is a good thing for readers, because it means there are more Alondra adventures in store.

Grief

My Dad will have been gone four years this July. It was a long and hard death for him. He'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's nearly 20 years before. He outlived my Mom by five years, and struggled to the very end in a body that literally disintegrated around him. My sister and her son took care of him and I helped when I could. But in the end we could only wait until he gave up.

I don't remember everything that happened then, but this is what I do remember:

Reading saved my life. My oldest best friend, Loren Rhoads was finishing up her space opera trilogy, In The Wake of the Templars, which she had sold to Night Shade Books. The fact that my friend had made a sale to a major publisher was literally the best thing that happened in.... it seemed like years.

She was on the tightest deadline I could imagine--it was months, where I take years to finish anything. Loren was doing it.

In the midst of all of that, she started sending me the book in progress, chapter by chapter. Now I couldn't tell you if it was one a week or a day, but it seemed as though, I woke up every day to something new, something exciting. Something that wasn't me at work, carrying my phone around all day waiting for the CALL.

My last memory of my Dad was that last day, sitting by his bed, trying to get him to wake up and take some water. It's also of Raena and her adventures. No More Heroes was so much more than a distractaction. It was a story that I could hang on to, in spite of everything. As I read Loren's story, I even had hope that there would be a time I could write my own again. I don't think I ever thanked her properly for that. 

Find all of them here

New Contemporary Fantasy from Loren Rhoads!

Check out this new collection from Loren Rhoads. A few weeks ago, I got to ask her questions about her stories. Read the interview below!

Alondra DeCourval travels from San Francisco to Prague to Olso, encountering magical creatures and searching for the limits she will go to for love.

Alondra's Experiments

 So, how long have you been writing your Alondra stories. I've been a fan forever.

Loren Rhoads: I wrote the very first story in high school. Thank god it's still unpublished. The first story that was published appeared in Not One of Us in 2008. That story -- about a fox spirit in Tokyo -- made the long list for the British Fantasy Award that year.

I remember that! It's a beautiful story. Alondra is such a great character, and you've been carrying her with you for a long time. Where did she come from?

Loren Rhoads: To be honest, I wanted to write a story about a red-haired witch. I had the hubris to think I could spin the trope and add something new to it. Actually, she's one of my favorite characters to write for.

The magic in her stories is so great too. I always learn something that I didn't know about magic.

Loren Rhoads: Wow, that is the nicest thing anyone's said to me all day!

I’m glad. It's true. What are your favorite monsters? What are Alondra's?

Loren Rhoads: Alondra has a thing for older men, so she's not sensible when it comes to the tragic backstory. She keeps getting tangled up with vampires and other immortals.

I mean, I like tragic. Also it keeps your commitment down.

Loren Rhoads: This is true.

I also like that the stories take place all over the world. You're very good at setting the scene. Where do these three stories take place?

Loren Rhoads:  The three in this book are set in Golden Gate Park, Prague -- including a visit to Franz Kafka's grave, and Olso. Olso is the one I haven't been to, so it took a lot of research

Which I know you love. I can't wait to read them. Do you see a more collections in Alondra's future?

Loren Rhoads: Thank you so much for asking that. I will have another collection of stories out sometime in April. It will be called Alondra’s Adventures.

Aha! I'm so glad to hear this. Something to look forward to.  I'm so envious of everyone who gets to read these stories for the first time!

The Alondra stories have appeared in Best New Horror #27, Strange California, Sins of the Sirens, Fright Mare: Women Write Horror, The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One, The Ghostbreakers: New Horrors and more.

Loren Rhoads is the author of 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die and Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel. She blogs about graveyards as travel destinations at CemeteryTravel.com.
Loren is also the author of The Dangerous Type, Kill By Numbers, and No More Heroes, a space opera trilogy set after a galactic war has wiped out much of humanity.
She is the co-author (with Brian Thomas) of the novel Lost Angels about a succubus who sets her sights on an angel and ends up possessed by a mortal girl's soul. 
Loren likes long walks in the moonlight and old graveyards. She remembers when men walked on the moon.

Day 11: a tiny bit more of Drifter. It's the pages that matter!

So here's more of my Page a Day Challenge. I have another scene from Drifter. Remember people, this a rough draft. You'll notice that I've left big holes for the things I can't figure out, because, let's face it, if I didn't I'd never get to the end of anything.

So again, this starts at the tail end of another scene. It's really about three pages, but who's counting.... It starts off with Skylar and Tarik talking about Raena. This happens before the scene you read previously. Skylar isn't human, and he's worried about Raena's xenophobic up-bringing. He's also worried that the ship is effectively dead in the water. There might be three different scene changes in this--the double drops. And also the POV changes as many times as well..... So...Welcome to my Brain. Um, don't touch anything. You don't know what it attached to.

               

Finally when he couldn’t stand the feeling of Tarik’s disappointment sting the air around him, Skylar said, “Why doncha get something to eat? I got the rest of this.”

The kid left with no further comment. How, after everything this galaxy had thrown at him, could Tarik still be so young? Skylar sighed. He hated that he might have to be the one to break all that. But he would do what he had to. Better Terik be disillusioned than dead.

Skylar tried to let the work ease his mind. The Panacea was a rust bucket that barely limped at the best of times. But Skylar loved her.  Almost as much as Doc and Tarik.

But she wasn’t co-operating just now. Skylar knew the only way they would be safe was to put a jump between them and the Noose’s debris field. If he couldn’t get the Panacea moving again they were dead.

The bypass wiring was easy. Skylar finished what Tarik had started, and within minutes had the atmo cycling at one hundred percent again, and rerouted power to the com. But the jump drive was the real problem. He turned away from the circuit panel and scrunched himself farther into the engine compartment. Fixing the drive was hands on, and everything down here was made for much smaller hands.

He squirmed his way passed the (repulsor thingie, or something) to the cradle the drive sat in. Skylar felt dread creep along the ridge of his spine. The smell of metal that was too hot to touch separated itself from the sharp of the burnt wiring. This was bad. (I need some help with the hardware here!) This was damage that he couldn’t fix or patch with his spanner. They needed replacement parts, and even a short detour was going to take too long now. Skylar stayed where he was, looking at the melted hunk of junk that was had been the thing that was going to save them, until he heard Doc’s boots on the deck above him.

“So.” She began. “Is this a good news/bad news situation?”

Skylar untangled himself from the machinery and ducked his head up from the hole. She looked down with a faint half smile on her face. She held a bottle of ambersi in one hand and two plasteel tumblers in the other. He tilted his head and flashed one fang to return the expression. Doc had been a spacer for too long to hope for the good, and he knew it. “Nope.”

She laughed, “Drink, then?”

“We must be desperate, if you’re sharin’.” Skylar levered himself up onto the deck to join her. “The jump’s fried.” And so are we, he thought.

She nodded. “How far are we to help?”

He gave a shrug and sat in the pilot’s seat, swiveling in so he could face her when she took the passenger’s. “There’s Gallherger brother’s, on (one of the planets). They maybe got what we need. At real time, that’s….”  The rough calculation clicked in his head. “Thirty hours?”

“Not bad.” Doc handed him the tumblers and cracked the seal on the bottle. “Then we’re not desperate at all. Just movin’ at cruise speed for a day or so, yeah?”

“We’re…..” He paused as she poured. “We’re as good as drifting until we get patched up. Anyone can find us out here.”

Doc took a drink and said, “Not much different from any other day, now is it?”

“Except…” Skylar didn’t finish.

“There’s something else, isn’t there? Besides the diplomat. It’s the girl herself.” Doc narrowed her eyes. “What are you not telling me?”

A soft growl escaped him. He looked down at the ambersi but didn’t drink it.

“You can’t think she’s still working for him.” Doc protested. “She’s been running from him all across the Border Worlds. It’d be hard to believe how many times she’s escaped, if for the damage recorded on her body. She’s serious about not wanting to be put back in his hands.”

Skylar didn’t dispute that. Instead he pulled the medallion from his vest pocket. He held it out for Doc to see.

“Human’s First?” She lifted her lip in her version of a snarl. “You don’t know it’s hers.”

“It’s got a recording on it, calls her by name.”

That seemed to slow Doc’s defense. She took a drink. “Sky, she’s so young. Maybe she started with them, but she’s seen enough of the rest of the galaxy to know how misguided they are.”

“They’re terrorisst.” He countered flatly. “And where’d she learn any different? From Thallian? Because he’s such a proponent of live and let live?”

“If you’re afraid of her--”

“It’s not that.” He growled. “It’s Tarik. He doesn’t need her puttin’ that poison in his head.”

Doc laughed. “I don’t think you gotta worry about that. Maybe you don’t remember being fifteen, but I’m pretty sure Raena’s the first girl Terik’s never even seen sleeping. It’s possible he hasn’t heard anything she’s said to him yet.”

Skylar looked at his drink. Wasted on him. It didn’t do a damn bit of good. “I don’t want her talkin’ to him.”

He took the bottle from where Doc had set it on the com, uncapped it again and carefully pored his back in. “You need to save that. We got parts to buy, so the budget’s gonna be tight around here.”

“You don’t think Tarik would listen to any of that shit.” Doc said. “You know that boy thinks of you as his father. You’re lookin’ at this wrong. Maybe he can take some of the poison out of her head.”

“Just keep an eye on him, then.” Skylar pushed to his feet. “I’m going to gonna grab some sleep.  Wake me for lunch.”

Doc watched him leave. Chaperoning teenagers. Sure, cuz that never went sideways. Still, she had to admit, if only to herself, that Sky was not wrong to be freaked out. Humans First! Weren’t just a boatload of crazy xenophobs, they were a well-armed and moderately organized boatload of crazy that weren’t interested in keeping up sane appearances. 

Day Eight: Two. More. Pages. Of something completely different.

So, here's this week's first page. Well, it's two pages, but you know.... So it's from a space opera I've been working on... Sorta, with Loren Rhoads, who is the Queen Of Getting Me In Trouble.

So the story is called Drifter, and it's about the crew of the Panacea, who come across a derelict ship, just floating along in space, the middle of relative night. Well, the crew are pretty honest when they can be, but how can you just let all those perfectly good parts go? Of course they find more on the ship than parts..... And new boots.

This scene is towards the end. Tarik is a member of the crew and Raena is on the run from the Empire. You may remember Tarik, and certainly Raena from Loren's trilogy, In the Wake of the Templars. (If you don't, start with the first one, The Dangerous Type. they're awesome and you won't regret it!)  Here they are teenagers, having just met. Poor Tarik is younger, and has barely spoken to a girl before.....

“I gotta a buncha brothers and sisters.” Tarik said before he thought it through.

Raena gave him a half smile. “A bunch? Where are they now?”

Tarik looked out the port, habit from left over from home, when he could tell time by the slant of the sun. It was the only thing he missed. Almost. He’d been on the Plague for only a year, but he already knew he never wanted dirt under his boots again. “There…. Were seven of us. All working the Coalition base on APLANET . We were loading the Panacea when the Imps hit the port.” He rubbed his eyes. “My sister gave me her blaster and sealed me into the hold with the supplies. She said one of them would find me.”

He left off the rest.

“I have a sister.” Raena said. “She would have done that for me too.”

“Yeah.” Tarik stuck a smile on his face and put his siblings to the back of his brain. “Even if you wished she didn’t.”

“Defiantly.”

Then they were both silent. Tarik wanted to apologize. Instead he said, “So do you play-----?”

Raena snorted. “Can I win credit off you?”

“Shaa.” Tarik scoffed. “You c’n try. Like I have any credit.”

The game they play here, and then:

“Do you think your sister survived?”

That caught him off guard. Sky and Doc didn’t talk about the past much. Not theirs, not his. Tarik had picked up the trick. Somehow Raena made him want to feel like he’d come from somewhere again. He shrugged. “Well, she didn’t have a blaster.”

There was a pause. Tarik really hoped Raena wouldn’t tell him the odds or worse, call Taryn a traitor to the Empire. Tarik knew that Raena might think it, but saying it would ruin his chance of making her into a friend. “No. I don’t think any of them survived the attack.”

That wasn’t what he told Doc. Not ever. Doc would never forgive herself for not saving all of them. She needed him to be hopeful, but Tarik wasn’t stupid. His family was dead. The Empire didn’t take grunts prisoner, why would they? No. Tarik knew that they were just extra weight.

“I’m sorry,” Raena said.

Again, he shrugged. “We grew up in the cause. We knew the risks. I just never thought I’d be the only one left.”

She smiled at him, and Tarik wondered if she understood. Who had she lost? Her sister? What about her parents? He hoped, if he talked, she might tell him something about herself. But she revealed nothing at all. So he smiled back. “I guess I just think now that I’m living on borrowed time. I should dead, like they are.”

“Then I’d be dead too.”

His smile widened. “Hope you don’t hold that against me too much.”

So here's the thing: I might be crazy.....

My friend Melodie Bolt posted a thing on Facebook about how she was going to write at least one page a day in August. That seems okay. I mean, it's a page. It doesn't have to be good, right?
As it happens, I'm having a little bit of a problem getting stuff on paper lately. I mean, the summer's been great, and I've been selling books--no, I know I ALWAYS sell books, at the book store, but this time I'm selling my book. That's weirder than I had anticipated. Great, but weird.
But I've had problems concentrating lately. After Black Light, I couldn't find my way back into my actual work in progress.
This week, though, was my annual trip to Gilchrist Retreat Center with my oldest best friend, Loren Rhoads.  I was really looking forward to it, but....  I was really scared that I wouldn't write  anything. The first day went badly. I couldn't stop thinking about bills that waited at home, about work, and general crap that was stacking up. I was so stressed that when I sat in my little cedar back porch with my notebook  I kept falling asleep mid-word. Maybe I was starting to get Alzheimer's?  I couldn't keep any thoughts in my head. I went out, took pictures of butterflies and decided that I was done with writing.
Luckily, Loren brought a bottle of wine over, and talked me out of that. And told me where to go next in the book. Thank Goodness.
I'm not done. And of course, Gilchrist is my favorite place to write, it's so beautiful and peaceful. I feel like I can breath there when sometimes it's hard to in the world.
So.... Remember what I was saying about Melodie and the page-a-day challenge? I said, hey, me too, almost without thinking. I mean, the pages in my notebook are pretty little. How hard could it be?
I better make it harder. Well, not for me, exactly.
So here's what gonna happen. I'm going to write a page a day.... Well hopefully more than that. And I'm going to pick out three of them a week and stick them up here, as well as into the book. No, not every one of them. That would be crazy.
But I can do three.
So I'll see you next week.

What is goin' on?

One the the weird/cool things that has happened since the book came out is that people have asked me a whole bunch of questions that I don't usually get. Okay, I'll be honest, nobody's ever asked me anything about what  write before. I did, over the last month, a series of interviews about  Black Light, and about writing in general.  I thought I'd put the links in below.

Shels Walter asked me about nail polish, and music. Coreena McBurnie wanted to know, pants or plot. I bet you know which one I chose, right?  Fiona McVie let me talk about religious experiences. And Terrie Leigh asked me about the nature of writing. 

Also I was interviewed by the Flushing View, which is my home town newspaper. This, out of anything else I've done in my life would have made my mother proud. 

Oh, hey, and my writing group, Flint Area Writers, has a swank new website, created by the amazing Melodie Bolt. You should totally go look at it and find out what the rest o FAW is up to.

So that was my June. July started with the signing, which I may have mentioned, at my B&N, and it's going to end with a trip to Gilchrist with my oldest best friend, Loren Rhoads, for writing and wine an lots and lots of quiet. I can't wait for that. 

Black Light: Loren Rhoads, David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust.

I didn’t begin this story alone. In 1983, Loren Rhoads was my best friend. She still is, though we’re separated now by the width of the country. But back then our world was MTV. It was Adam Ant and the Police. It was used records from Saturday trips to Ann Arbor. And most of all it was David Bowie. It was the year of “Let’s Dance.”

With his bleached white hair, asymmetrical smile and deceptively bouncy pop music, this was a vastly different Bowie than I’d met years before in the middle of the night. That shrill and jagged Bowie that had been there no one else was. Still, since I was aspiring punk rocker, I might have given Let’s Dance a pass. But it was inescapable, spilling out of every car window that passed my open bedroom window that summer. And what it did for both Loren and I was lead us to the past. I remember that Loren bought albums. She bought all the Bowie she could.  We listened to Diamond Dogs on her stereo in her bedroom, puzzled over the lyrics, let the imagery color our imaginations. For Loren, Diamond Dogs was a starting point for short stories. For me, it was farther back. For me it was Ziggy. “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”. Trace, Asia, Weird and Tommy were all born from that album. But the story, Trace and Asia’s story, began with one song.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UQvBzo_rJA

In the words of “Lady Stardust," I saw Asia, standing in that sweaty, hungry crowd, listening. I watched him feel what he could never say aloud, and I felt him lose the chance to ever speak up. Asia became the unnamed character in Bowie’s story for me. And then it became a different story. The membes of Black Light are from Michigan, because we were from Michigan, they are from the ‘80’s because so were we. Asia became a place to hold all my feelings of Midwestern repression. Ziggy became Trace; beautiful, and human, but completely unattainable. Even now when I listen to the Ziggy Stardust album it's full of energy and bravado, still a candle against the night.

Eventually, Loren's writing and mine took different paths. She has gone on to write more than anyone I know, and you can check out her blog here: httpp//:lorenrhoads.com/  

In fact, go look at her newest novel, Lost Angels, co-written with Brian Thomas: http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Angels-Above-Below-Book/dp/0963679422  It's an amazing book, and you need a copy, believe me. 

She's still the only person in the world who I can spend five hour in the same room with, just writing....with occasional tea breaks. And I don't think I'll ever be able to thank her enough for that first copy of Ziggy..... 

Cover Reveal:Black Light!

Hey look! Here is the beautiful cover for my book, coming in May, from Automatism press. I can't wait till I can hold it in my hands-and get it into all of your hands too! re
Isn'tit beautiful and mysterious? Bioblossom Creative did the art. And below is the blurb, so you can be even more intrigued.

I

It’s 1983, Los Angles, and Trace Dellon, lead singer, knows exactly what he wants; the white heat of the spotlight. When his band, Black Light is offered a record deal, Trace grabs for it, eager to move up from their club gigs. He will do anything it takes to make it.

Asia Heyes, bass player knows what he wants too. It’s not the fame or the adoration of fans and groupies. It’s Trace. It’s always been Trace.  Though it’s been unspoken between them- his other lovers-his audience-push Asia aside. 

With the contract, comes Albrecht Christian into their lives. He is a man with everything but what he needs to live: the energy that runs just under Trace’s skin. But even Trace isn’t enough, and Albrecht finds himself starving.

When everything crashes with a bullet, they all learn the truth. Rock and roll, like magic requires both love and sacrifice. Then Black Light’s fragile trajectory to greatness really begins.

First lines in the dying days of January

So my friend Loren Rhoads tagged me. She recently wrote a blog that included the first lines of everything she is working on now. Whoa, she is way amore ambitious than me!  Go take a look. But anyway, she tagged the rest of us to do that same. So, here goes my stuff:

The book I'm revising about a rock and roll band in 1983 and a psychic vampire is called The Black Light: Trace stands in the wings backstage at the Refugee Club, a narrow shadow.

So, then there's the short story about same psychic vampire's youth, called Knives: I light a fresh cigarette off the butt of the dying one before crushing it into the tray set in the door of the car.

And of course there's The Night Was Not, which is the NeoVictorian third gender romance that I'm stuck in the middle of: Kerry Hazard slid into the pilot's seat of the Starshine as he toggled the print switch on the com console. 

Yep. There you have it. Or at least there you have some of it. I'm not a very fast writer, and some of these things I've  been working on for quite a while. I'm trying to write more every day, and faster too. I'll never be one of those writers who can write ten thousand words a day. But  I think I'm ready to get to the ends of at least these things. Wish me luck.

So, I'll ask the question of the other writers I know: What are your first lines? 

The things I (would have) left behind

My best friend and I have always written. We've known each other and have shared our stories for over thirty years. We have lived on opposite sides of the country for almost two thirds of that time, and of course become different people than we were as kids. We've had different lives, but writing has always been the constant.

She asked me, a while ago if she could use a character of mine in a new story she was writing. She would change his name, and the setting, of course, but she wanted to know if it was alright with me if he made an appearance.

I didn't know what to say. I was more than happy to let her have him. I wasn't doing anything with him, that was for sure.  When she began to talk about what role he would play in this new story of hers, I was hit with a wave of uncertainty, as though I was falling back into who I was all those years ago. I was jealous of her new idea, of the writer she was. I felt awful. She had improved her writing so much since then, why was I still struggling with every word?

I wanted to protect what was mine, but I also wanted to let him go. I wanted to see what she did with him. Of the two of us, I had more faith in her than I did in me, to complete the story.

So I gave up my seventeen year old self who felt inferior, and angry about being inferior. That was the first thing, and it wasn't easy. Then I decided to try to be as much help as I could. Not only because she is my best friend, but because I knew I would learn things along the way.

She did finish the book, and my character, who is a relatively minor one, is also one of the heroes. He comes across as a guy who is just doing the best he can while trying to stay as deceit as he can. He's perfect, but he's also not mine anymore. He's one facet of my character, as seen through her eyes, so reading him was so much more fun than I ever expected.

There was another unexpected bonus. She got me thinking about those stories we wrote back then. I decided it might be time for me to start telling my version. I could write that character from the present, with all the things I've learned since we were kids added in. I haven't stayed in the same place, I've moved forward, I've just moved differently. I wanted a story that reflected that, even if only to myself.

The result is the novel I'm working on now, called “The Night Was Not.” It's a neo-Victorian story. This incarnation of the character is called Kerry Hazard. He flies an airship, and is called back to the city of his childhood by an ominous message from a friend. It's a very different story from my friend's novel, which is a space opera (yay!), but the character came from the same place. He was born in the back of a notebook, scribbled in while lying on either of our bedroom floors in the middle of the night. It's where he would have stayed if she hadn't picked him up again. 

The Dangerous Type, by Loren Rhoads is out today!!!

Set in the wake of a galaxy-wide war and the destruction of a human empire, The Dangerous Type follows the awakening of one of the galaxy's most dangerous assassins and her quest for vengeance. Entombed for twenty years, Raena has been found and released.

Thallian has been on the lam for the last fifteen years.  He's a wanted war criminal whose entire family has been hunted down and murdered for their role in the galaxy-wide genocide of the Templars. His name is the first on Raena's list, as he's the one that enslaved her, made her his assassin, and ultimately put her in a tomb. But Thallian is willing to risk everything--including his army of cloned sons--to capture her. Now it's a race to see who kills whom first.

Alternatively, Gavin has spent the last twenty years trying to forget about Raena, whom he once saved and then lost to Thallian. Raena's adopted sister, Ariel, has been running from the truth -- the one about Raena, about herself and Gavin -- and doesn't know if she'll be able to face either of them.

The Dangerous Type is a mix of military science fiction and an adventurous space opera that grabs you from the first pages and doesn't let go. Along with a supporting cast of smugglers, black market doctors, and other ne'er-do-wells sprawled across a galaxy brimming with alien life, The Dangerous Type is a fantastic beginning to Loren Rhoads's epic trilogy.

I've told you about this book before, remember? It came out today, and the copies I had in my bookstore flew off the shelves, but don't worry, I'll be getting more of them. Also it's available from bn.com and amazon, for both nook and kindle.

The Dangerous Type is everything the blurb says and more. I loved this book, and you will too. AND the best part is that there are more to come! I can't wait for number two!

Stuff That's Happening (and a little tiny rant)

This is usually where I share stuff that my other writer friends have going on. And there's a bunch of stuff going on. My friend Kacey Vanderkarr's first book in her trilogy, Reflection Pond is FREE on Kindle right now. If you don't already have it, go here:http://www.amazon.com/Reflection-Pond-Kacey-Vanderkarr-ebook/dp/B00JCZ8V8M 

I'm not kidding you should read this book. And then leave a review. 

And my friend Loren Rhoads is having a goodreads give-a-way for the book she wrote with Brian Thomas, As Above, So Below. You should enter to win here : https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/123716-as-above-so-below And then you know, if you win, read it and leave a review. 

And always, there's Out of the Green, Yep, it's right over the the right of you. If you haven't gotten your copy, seriously what are you waiting for? Not only does it include stories by the aforementioned  authors, but also a story by me, and ten others, all with their unique view of fairy. If you're around my area, I can fix you up with a copy,  no need to wait. If not, well you know where it's available. And once you've read it..... You know what I'm going to say, right? Yep. Leave a review......

Maybe you're sensing a common theme here. The "leave a review" part? yeah. Stephen King once said something like, the writer and the reader are in partnership. One doesn't exist without the other. I'm paraphrasing, but I believe it's true. When you write a story, a novel, a poem, it's not meant to sit on your desk, or in a drawer. It needs a reader. Or, to be honest, it needs a bunch of readers. I write so that I can find out what happens in the end. I hope that people read my stories for the same reason, to find out what happens in the end. To be relieved, or heartbroken at how it plays out. 

This is what makes the Internet a wonderful and terrible place. Now readers are more accessible than ever. And that's fantastic. But it there's no feedback, the words you put out may as well be sitting in that drawer..... 

The truth is that putting books out online, whether electronically or as traditional books, is a word-of-mouth game of selling. Kindle rates books on their reader reviews and that can make or break an indie author. So if you enjoy an author, and leave a review, it does two things. One: it puts another of their books into your hands(kindle ranking and all that). Two: you tell that author that it's working, that yes, the novel you sweated over worked for me. It touched me and I identified with it. Believe me, to a writer, sitting in some cafe somewhere alone with their computer, that's huge. 

Oh! And before I forget, I have a new short story up on Wattpad that you can read for free! (@MarthaAllard). It's my lesbian genie story. I actually really like it..... If you like it.....um.... feel free to leave a comment....... 

Wild is the Wind--Out of the Green.

I've always loved a good rock and roll magic story. I mean, think about it, isn't rock and roll magical anyway? What if what we think of as onstage theatrics are all really magic? No, not like Ozzy getting in trouble with PETA. Like what if the boy with the glitter eyeliner and up swept  ears is actually what he looks like?

So when Kacey Vanderkarr suggested that we co-edit this anthology and also suggested we write for it, I thought, cool! I know just what I want to write about.

Fairy and rock and roll? What could go wrong? I love the British, from the seventies and the eighties, because there's a restlessness to that music. British rock and rollers of that time all longed to escape England. It was too small. Too much the same. They wanted America because from where they stood, it was wide and huge and anything could happen.

That restlessness was my inspiration for my Fairy Lord to leave his lands.  It makes sense to me that he falls in love as soon as he leaves, and takes the human world for his own.   What happens after that? Oh, I'm not going to tell you. That would ruin it.

If you want to know what happens, the links are all down here, There are twelve other stories as well, all with different takes on Fairyland.

Also, contributor Loren Rhoads has also blogged about her story. You can read about it here:http://lorenrhoads.com/blog/  Check out her website. She is a busy writer!

Links  For the Book: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/out-of-the-green-martha-j-allard/1120802195?ean=9781503079281

For the ebook:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_fb_1_15?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=out+of+the+green+tales+from+fairyland&sprefix=out+of+the+gree%2Cstripbooks%2C581
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/out-of-the-green-kacey-vanderkarr/1120812796?ean=2940150730700