If you’ve already preordered Capture the Sun, then you might’ve gotten an email (or two!) from your retailer telling you that the release date changed. Nobody panic, but the date did get pushed back slightly due to issues with the printer.
The good news is that it wasn’t pushed all the way to mid-July, which was the first change. The bad news is that it was pushed from May 9 to June 20.
Cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth. I’ll wait.
I absolutely hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the printer literally isn’t able to bind the book until the end of May, so you can see where an early May release date might have been a bit of a problem. :(
You’ll have to wait just a little bit longer, but I hope it’ll all be worth it in the end. 💕
And if you have preordered already, maybe just double-check that it wasn’t canceled? I think retailers keep the orders active when the date changes, but I’ve heard some horror stories, too, so if you get a chance, maybe just pop over and check. I’ll put the links below so it’s hopefully super easy. Thank you!!!
This Wednesday, Nov 2, at 6PM CST, I’ll be doing a virtual panel with C. L. Polk and S. L. Huang all about love in SFF! This is a subject near and dear to my heart, so I’m super excited! Tubby & Coo’s Mid-City Book Shop is hosting the event, and you’ll need to register to join.
The bookstore is asking that you either buy a book or make a donation (as little as $1) to register, but if that’s outside your budget, you can email the events coordinator and they’ll get you an invite for free, no questions asked. Details are on the page.
Now I have to go work on a newsletter because Honor and Shadows is out tomorrow!
Y’all, I can’t believe it’s almost November. 😭 For those of you in the US, please remember to vote. Early voting is happening now in TX and probably some other states, so do your research and then go vote. This is especially important for local races for things like school boards. Book banning is going to continue unless we do something to stop it, and your vote really matters locally.
And finally, Happy Halloween! May your day be filled with candy and adorable costumes. :)
I sent off the edits for Capture the Sun to my editor this morning! 🎉 Overall, edits weren’t too bad this time, and I only added about 2k to the manuscript, bringing it up to 111k words. This is pretty much right in line with the other two books. In fact, all of my trad books have been around 110k-115k words, so I’ve got consistency going for me!
I shared the image above on social media when I was doing a final read-through of the book after most of the edits were done, and I’m sure some of you were yelling “ENHANCE!” like this was CSI (no? just me??), so here’s the full text, since it was too long to fit in an alt tag. It’s not final-final, and it hasn’t been copyedited, but here you go, the opening of Capture the Sun:
I’d sworn I would never set foot on Valovia again, but I was about to prove myself a liar. That fact had never been in question, but I tried to keep the promises I made to myself. The screen in my cabin gently mocked me, displaying a green and brown close-up of the planet while the atmosphere buffeting the ship’s hull grew denser as we sank toward the surface.
Valovia had burned me twice already. I usually learned from my mistakes, but once again the promise of money had overridden my good sense. I mentally winced. My former captain, Octavia Zarola, would be so disappointed in me. Tavi had a strict moral compass. Mine was a lot more flexible.
And a lot more lucrative.
Case in point: the sumptuous first-class cabin surrounding me, paid for by Besor Edfo, my contact and potential employer on Valovia. It was an obvious ploy for him to demonstrate that he had money to spare, since I hadn’t agreed to take the job yet, only to meet, but it was a nice touch. As was the prepaid first-class return ticket.
Besor had offered me a truly ridiculous amount of money to recover a stolen figurine for him. Apparently, he and a rival had been feuding over the piece of art for close to a decade, and it had switched hands a dozen times thanks to the efforts of a few recovery specialists.
Officially, recovery specialists were experts at tracking down items that had gone missing, whether through negligence or theft. But in reality, we were often the reason items went missing.
The book is due out in May 2023, but in case you don’t want to forget, here are some handy links for you. 😉
Now I’m going to take the weekend off (woo!), and go mattress shopping (boo!). That sentence was a real roller coaster, lol, but fingers crossed we find something we like that doesn’t cost a fortune. 🤞🏻
Honor and Shadows, the prequel short story set just before the start of Hunt the Stars, is out in just three weeks on November 1!
This was a bonus story for people who preordered HTS, and while the edited version is a little bit longer, it didn’t change too much, so if you got the preorder bonus, don’t feel like you need to buy it. But you can if you want! I won’t stop you! 😂
Honor and Shadows is a 10,000-word prequel novelette set just before the start of Hunt the Stars.
Captain Octavia Zarola needs an infusion of credits—fast—if she’s going to keep her close-knit bounty hunting crew paid and fed. Tracking down an escaped embezzler on a backwater planet should be a piece of cake, but bounties are rarely as easy as they seem.
As the crew closes in on their quarry, the hunt becomes entangled with a local criminal overlord, and Tavi will have to decide what’s more important: money or honor, and how much she’s willing to risk for either one.
Print books are coming, but I’d really only recommend them if you absolutely adore print, because print-on-demand is expensive, especially for a story that clocks in just under 14k words. (Yeah, I know the official text says 10k, but that’s because I didn’t update it after I edited the story.)
The print books should, if everything goes to plan, be the same size as the trad books, but I haven’t gotten a proof yet to confirm. Fingers crossed!
And now why you’re here: a little peek at Capture the Sun. I’m editing it now, so I shared a couple of very tiny snippets on Twitter yesterday, but here’s a slightly longer look at each of them. They’re not copyedited, subject to change, etc, etc.
Snippet the first:
I was traveling under a false name, so even if he was on the lookout for me—which I very much doubted, my hubris wasn’t that high—he wouldn’t know I was back on Valovia. And Zenzi’s population was over two million, so the odds that we would accidentally meet were incredibly slim.
Still, I crossed my fingers to ward off bad luck.
Nilo had his own gravity, much like a black hole, and in this, at least, I was smart enough not to be drawn in a third time—no matter how much I was tempted by his charming grin and sly wit.
Snippet the second:
I schooled my face into sharp amusement. “Did you forget that I speak Valovan? I’m not your treasure.” No matter how much the endearment made my heart race.
His expression softened and his thumb slid over the sensitive skin above my pulse. “Are you sure?”
It took a mighty effort, but I managed to pull my wrist away from his intoxicating touch. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“We’ll agree to disagree,” he said, echoing my words back to me.
Lexi and Nilo are so much fun! I kind of forgot how much I love this book because parts of it felt like such a slog (thanks, burnout!), but now that I’m editing, I’m delighted that I wrote it, lol. And my editor agrees! She told me it was “absolutely the perfect book for Lexi and Nilo” and if that’s not high praise, I don’t know what is. :)
It’s been quiet around here lately because we just got back from visiting Ms T, my BFF, for two weeks in southern California, which was absolutely lovely. Mr M and I worked during the week, then we did mini-vacations on the weekends. Ms T’s neighborhood had a pool, which meant we got to swim nearly every day after work, so that was awesome.
My magical fantasy romance is now over 18k words and sort of going in an unexpected direction, but I’m still having fun, so I’m rolling with it.
The first weekend in CA, we went to San Diego for a day at the zoo and beaches, then a day at the Miramar Air Show. I can’t remember the last time I went to an air show, but this one was fantastic! It probably helped that Ms T bought us the fancy tickets with reserved seats right in center field and food and a bar. Win win win!
The air show headliners were the Blue Angels, the Navy’s fancy flying group, and they must have nerves of steel, because they flew real close to each other. It was super impressive. Here’s an animated gif as an example. I made it from a video, and I’m not putting it on the page directly because the file is pretty big, but it’s worth the click. :)
Because I spent the day staring at the sky, I sunburned my lips. They are usually protected by the wide-brimmed hat I wear nearly everywhere outdoors, but looking up negated the hat’s shade. Remember to wear SPF lip gloss, future air show goers!
Last weekend, we went to Joshua Tree National Park. Deserts aren’t usually my thing, but it was beautiful. We did it all—sunset, stars, and sunrise—which made for a long but fun weekend. Ms T also convinced us to climb a mountain. It might have been a trail with almost 1000ft of vertical elevation gain, but it certainly felt like a mountain. 😂
SunriseSunset
Mr M and I took Monday off and went to check out the ocean. Despite all assurances to the contrary, it was freezing cold. Like literal* ice could’ve been floating in it. (*Okay okay, pedants, figurative ice.) We didn’t swim, but we did wade and sit on the beach and watch the surfers, most—but not all—of whom were wearing wetsuits. I salute you, brave wetsuitless surfers; you’re made of sterner stuff than I am.
Then, in an incredible stroke of good timing, edits for Capture the Sun landed in my inbox this morning. My editor absolutely loved it, so I’m relieved. I’ll be editing it for the next few weeks, then we’ll see what happens, because it’s almost time to think about what’s next and what that looks like.
