It’s Award Time: Authors Recognition Award

Hello Bloglandia!

I am chin deep in the Land of Rewrites, but I’m taking a brief side tour back into Bloglandia to share a little award I was recently nominated for.

Okay, it’s just a blog award, which unfortunately means no cash prizes no mater how many times I dream of my printer suddenly turning into an ATM (withdrawing from Bill Gates’s account, not mine, obviously).

But it’s still pretty cool to be recognized because the person who named me probably knows dozens of far more deserving authors than yours truly.

Anyway, onto the award and the little game that goes along with these sorts of prizes.

The Author’s Recognition Award was originally created by Beverly over at Becoming the Oil and Wine Blog. She wanted to support fellow bloggers who have written and published books, or who are somewhere in that process, to give them an opportunity to write about their work…which we authors LOVE to do because writing about our work is the perfect excuse to procrastinate from writing our novels.

Anyway…it wasn’t the infamous Beverly who nominated me. It was the witty and historically curious Sarah Angleton.Seriously, if you love quirky history presented with a dose of humor, you need to check out her blog. But not just yet.

Sarah writes historical fiction and she also honored me last year when she asked me to write a blurb for her forthcoming )now published) novel Smoke Rose to Heaven. So a big thanks to Sarah!!!

Okay, now I must complete my honorific Author Recognition duties, by attempting to complete the following tasks….

1. Create a new post on your blog with the Authors Recognition Award logo or with one of your own creation. DONE! I WENT WITH MAKING MY OWN BECAUSE, YOU KNOW… PROCRASTINATION…
2. Include both the purpose of the award and the rules of the award. NAILED IT!
3. Thank the person who nominated you and link to their blog. YEP, DONE WITH THAT ONE.
4. Include links to the creator of the award and to the inspiration post Celebrating and Supporting our Fellow Writers. THANKS TO CUT AND PASTE, THAT WAS A CINCH.
5. Write a brief description of the books you have written or the book you are currently writing. GETTING TO THAT, JUST A SEC.
6. Include a link to your published books or the potential timeline of release. SEE BELOW
7. Nominate at least five bloggers who have published books or who are writing a book. UH-OH…I SEE TROUBLE AHEAD.
8. Support at least one of the bloggers you nominated by either purchasing one of their books or sharing the links to their books. If they haven’t written a book, share one of their blog posts. GOT IT!

So, About My Books…

I’ll just sum up my two historical fantasy series and my current WIP. if you want to check out more of my work, please head over to the Books page on my website.

The Osteria Chronicles: A Six-Book Mythological Fantasy Adventure

Myths and heroes may be reborn, but the whims of the gods never change.

Perfect for fans of mythological adventure and romance like Clash of the Titans, as well as historical fantasy fiction by Madeline Miller, S.J.A. Turney, Mary Renault, and Bernard Cornwell, the Osteria Chronicles are a captivating fantasy series in which the myths, gods, and heroes of Ancient Greece come to life as you’ve never seen them before.

If you want to try out the series, you can get the first book, The Trials of Hercules, for free on most retailers.

Domna: A Serialized Novel of Osteria

Destiny isn’t given. It’s made by cunning, endurance, and, at times, bloodshed.

If you like the political intrigue, adventure, and love triangles of historical fiction by Philippa Gregory and Bernard Cornwell, or the mythological world-building of fantasy fiction by Madeline Miller and Simon Scarrow, you’ll love this exciting story of desire, betrayal and rivalry!!

As with The Osteria Chronicles, you can get the first installment (The Sun God’s Daughter) of this series for free, or if you prefer, you can get all six parts of Domna plus exclusive bonus features in Domna: The Complete Series

Short Stories

I love to stretch my writing muscles with short stories that tend toward a quirky look at death, but also play with a bit of magical realism. There’s too many to list here, but if you want to peruse a few of them, you’ll find them HERE.

Work in Progress

I’m currently plodding my way through  a trilogy that I’ll probably wait until next year to release, but who knows, I might release book one this year if I feel I’m ready for that sort of excitement.

The series, which is either going to be called The Cassie Black Trilogy or The Keep Portland Wyrd Trilogy, is about Cassie Black (obviously). She works in a funeral home. She’s used to dead bodies. What she’s not used to is them waking up. And when one of the waking dead, Mr. Busby Tenpenny, informs her he was murdered, Cassie gets reluctantly pulled into a whole new world of magic, evil wizards, and pastries.

I’m having a ton of fun with this trilogy and the first book has already won a couple awards (real awards with prize money and everything!!), so I’ve got high hopes for it.

And if it sounds of interest to you, I’d highly recommend joining my newsletter team to keep up to date on that fluctuating release date (you’ll also eventually get a free sample of book one).

Okay, here’s where I fail in my duties…

I don’t follow a lot of authors’ blogs. I try to, but so many of them put up posts and never respond to comments, which kind of irks me. I appreciate blog writers who want to interact with their readers, because really, isn’t that what Bloglandia is all about?

Anyway, so instead of quantity, I’m going to go with quality and nominate a single blog that’s really worth checking out…

Jaunts & Haunts by Jonny Pongratz.

Jonny loves reading, he loves movies, he loves getting to know fellow writers, and he’s got a mystery novel up for pre-order.  CORRECTION: He’s actually got a fabulous short story titled Conscience in the works that I had the honor of beta-reading…sorry for the mix-up. See, this is why i don’t have friends.

Sigh, I expect my award will probably be taken away now, but it was fun while it lasted. Do I still get to keep the treat bag they handed me at the entrance? Too bad, I already ate all the cookies!!!

Have a great week, everybody, and if you have recommendations for writing blogs (or any creative person’s blog) who writes fun, witty posts and likes to interact with their readers, please do toss them in the comments below.

Well, toss the name in there, don’t toss the person, that would be mean.

***

Spend some time amongst the gods & goddesses

Click the image below to discover dozens of stories that put a fantastic new twist on old legends!