This week only, the Eclipse the Moon ebook is on sale for $1.99 in the US and Canada (other international prices may vary). The sale ends April 2, so grab it while it’s a bargain!
Kee is my favorite chaotic rainbow hacker, and Varro is her perfect foil. 💕 Plus, now is an excellent time to catch up with the story, since the third book, Capture the Sun, comes out in June!
Now I’m off to pronounce all of the made-up words I used in Capture the Sun for the audiobook narrator. Eeeee!
We’re less than three months away from the release of Capture the Sun, which means it’s time to celebrate! If you head over to the book page, you’ll find a shiny new chapter waiting for you!
Every time I revisit parts of the book, I’m reminded of just how much I love Lexi and Nilo together. She’s prickly, he’s charming, and I adore them both as they stab their way to happiness. This book also wraps up the trilogy arc, so if you’ve been patiently waiting for some much deserved comeuppance for certain characters, your time is nigh (no spoilers!). :)
If preorders aren’t your jam, please consider requesting it from your local library. Many libraries allow patrons to make purchase requests, and often they’ll put you first in line for if/when they buy the book, so wins all around! Plus using your local library shows there is demand, which can help them keep funding, and we certainly need all the libraries we can get right now.
Libraries are the best! I’m reading Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai from my local library right now, and it’s absolutely lovely. I stayed up reading way, way too late last night, and I left the characters in a precarious situation, so I’m desperate to get back to it tonight.
On that note, I’m off to make some words, since despite my best efforts, this book refuses to write itself. It would be so much easier if it would just jump from my brain, fully formed, like a literary Athena. Wouldn’t that be great? Ooh, maybe I could write that story.
Authorial truth: Nothing ever looks shinier than a new project while deep in the middle of a current project. :)
Mr. M was off on Friday, and we made the most of it by spending basically the entire weekend playing the early beta of Diablo IV. We’re both huge Diablo fans, and even though a lot of fans hate on Diablo III, we’ve played literally hundreds of hours of it because while the story might not be the best, it’s soothing to click on monsters and have loot pop out.
So to say we’re excited for Diablo IV is a massive understatement.
And I’m happy to report, that despite the troubling rumors from development, it’s a lot of fun! There are bugs and issues, as with any beta, and I’m doubtful they’re going to get them all ironed out in the next two and half months, but it’s totally playable.
Especially after they fixed the queuing issues from Friday that saw us sitting in 70- and 90-minute queues to login. That was less fun, but by Saturday, the queues were generally less than a minute, so they either fixed the issue or threw a whole lot more servers at it, and either way, good job Blizzard.
They’ve definitely leaned in to the horror side more with IV than III. Or maybe I’m just used to playing III in adventure mode without the cutscenes, but the early cutscenes in IV were very pretty and very horrific (in a good, scary-movie kind of way). If you have a weak stomach for blood and gore, you may want to tread carefully.
We hit the beta level cap of 25 and made it all the way through Act I with one character and hit the level cap with another. I played Barbarian and Rogue, and Mr. M played Sorcerer and Rogue. Character design is still kind of limited, but it actually exists now, and look how cool I looked with just the basics!
I think cosmetics are going to be one of the real money items, and they’re probably going to get some of mine, because I do love to make my characters look nice.
I generally prefer melee characters, which is why I started with the barbarian, but the rogue was waaaaaay easier. I’ve heard that barbarian gets better at higher levels, but I felt like I was doing no damage, while Mr. M’s sorcerer killed everything in like two seconds. So most fights were me face tanking whatever we were fighting while he killed it from afar, which is our normal style, but usually I’m doing at least some damage, and it didn’t really feel that way with the barbarian build I was using.
Next weekend is the open beta, no preorder required, so we’ll see if the extra people bring back the queueing issues. They’re also opening up the Druid and Necromancer classes, so it’ll be fun to see how those play.
Since we play co-op, I usually play a paladin-type class that tanks and heals and does some DPS, while Mr. M plays a glass-cannon ranged DPS class. If you don’t play games, those words probably don’t make sense, but it basically means my character has a lot of armor and resistance, so I stand in front of enemies and keep their attention while Mr. M attacks them from a distance. He’s the one that deals most of the damage, but if his character gets hit, he dies, so it’s my job to keep the enemies focused on me. Barbarian fills that role, but it’s not my first choice, so I’m excited to try the other two classes.
This year is shaping up to be a big year for gaming, assuming the dev schedules hold, which is always iffy. We’ve got Redfall, the new Zelda, Diablo IV, and Starfield just to name a few. Are there any games you’re looking forward to this year? Did you happen to play the D4 beta? Let me know your thoughts!
It’s gray and drizzly today and generally very blah, which is kind of how this week has been. I got our taxes done and filed, which always takes longer than I expect. But it’s done, so yay for being responsible.
We have a formal dinner with a friend coming up next month, and Mr. M needed a new suit, so we decided to try our luck at Goodwill last night. Friends, he got a suit that looks tailored to him, plus a brand-new suit jacket that matches some pants he already had, a waistcoat, and a pair of dress shoes for less than $50.
I’m so jealous. The women’s section was, let’s say, less good.
Luckily, I have a clearance dress arriving today, which will either look ’20s glam or like a shiny bathrobe, and only time will tell. 😂 I did also order a safer backup dress, so if it’s shiny bathrobe, at least I’ll have options.
We rarely dress up, so it’s a fun excuse to look fancy, and the dress code said to err on the side of too much rather than not enough. I’m thinking about buying a fascinator, like I’m a duchess or some such nonsense. Ooh, and one of those long cigarette holder thingies, never mind that I don’t smoke and never have. I can just wave it around while I bemoan the peasantry.
I love it when a plan comes together. 😂
Do you dress up on the regular, or is it a rare event? Also, do you own a fascinator, and if so, is it awesome?
If you’ve been waiting to order Capture the Sun until the signed preorder campaign went up, then I have good news! Today, BookPeople added the signed preorder page to their site! Not only can you order a signed and personalized copy of Capture the Sun, but you can also add any of my backlist books (in the same order), and I’ll sign/personalize them all!
Plus, the first fifty-ish orders of CTS will come with a bookmark and stickers!
When you’re ordering, be sure to put your personalization request in the comments of the order (during checkout). And to make things easy, here are direct links to my backlist books, so you can add them to your cart:
