Life, Interrupted

Tonight at midnight is when the contest ends. You can enter here, at the Book View Cafe site, or with any other member of BVC who has blog access and is running the author promotion.

More info and a list of participating blogs here.

For folks who don't have Fires of Nuala yet, the discount coupon is good through Sunday, June 10th. BVC is still DRM-Free, as always.

(Scanning skies looking for rainclouds...)

Everyone, Writer Linda Nagata has a new anthology out, Goddesses and Other Stories, containing ten stories including her Nebula winner, "Goddesses." This is Linda's first collection, and it pulls together stories that were originally published in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, More Amazing Stories, and SciFi.com.

You can sample her writing by reading one of the stories, "Spectral Expectations."

So if you like to carry short story collections for those times when you're waiting for something, this collection is only $3.95 and available in EPUB and MOBI. Go get yourself a pocketful of new ideas!

Hey, in the mood for a new SF novel? Have you tried the work of Linda Nagata yet? She won the Locus Award for best first novel with The Bohr Maker, and her novella "Goddesses" was the first online publication to win a Nebula Award. So -- good stuff is promised! Here's what Limit of Vision is about:

"LOVs" are a tiny artificial lifeform containing bioengineered human neurons. Three young scientists illegally use implanted LOVs to enhance their cognitive abilities--but when the experiment goes wrong, the consequences are bizarre and unforeseeable. A space station module containing the last remnants of the LOVs crashes to Earth in the Mekong Delta, and the sole surviving scientist, Virgil Copeland, finds himself in a race to recover them--and avoid arrest. He meets Ela Suvanatat, an independent journalist infected by LOVs when she arrived first at the crash site. Together, they will ride the whirlwind of a runaway biotechnology leading to the next phase of human evolution.

Ha! For once I am ahead of the game -- I've read this one, and I enjoyed it. This is "Georgette Heyer Lite" writing, a sweet Regency from early in the career of writer Madeleine Robins. You can enjoy her fine hand at characterization and word choice without the darkness of her great Regency Noir books about Sarah Tolerance, Agent of Inquiry.

Currently available only at Book View Cafe, My Dear Jenny tells about one of those sisters who slips through the cracks -- the ones without a decent dowry, whose parents decide up front that they will be the spinster aunt forever taking care of someone else's children. Our heroine doesn't even have her own sister looking out for her, a large hole in what her family situation might be. She is content living with an aunt and her brood, and has several good friends, one of whom married well and asks her to London to help support HER sister who is getting married in a whirl.

However, nothing ends up the way it starts out, from Jenny getting stuck for weeks behind a quarantine in an inn to her becoming an impromptu shepherdess for a naive young woman who nearly ran away with a fortune-hunting rake. Before it is over, her own unwieldy name has been shortened to "Jenny," she's been invited as a house guest among the rich and famous, and her backup in this adventure turns out to be a retired military nabob and his nephew.

Does Jenny get her own happily-ever-after? You'll have to read it to find out! At $3.99 it will be excellent beach reading! Here's a sample.

I was going to wait until I read this to mention it, but you must believe me -- if you haven't read anything by Chris Dolley, you need to do so immediately! Here's the latest author blurb from this funny, multi-talented man:

Chris Dolley has been a computer consultant, a pioneer computer games designer, an amateur detective and once, as a teenager, freed a small country. Now he lives with his wife and a large collection of animals on a farm they renovated in the Normandy-Maine Regional Park.

How can you not be curious about Chris Dolley's work? This is the author of the SF novel Shift, of the autobiographical amateur detective story French Fried, of the pictorial International Kittens of Mystery! Medium Dead and What Ho, Automaton! are traveling with me on my laptop next week. I'll try anything Chris Dolley writes.

So, just to let you mystery readers know about his quirky little mystery debuting this month at Book View Cafe:

Peter Shand is the 'safe pair of hands' – a high-flying police administrator seconded to a quiet rural CID team to gain the operational experience he needs for promotion. On his second day he’s thrust into a high-profile murder case. A woman’s body is discovered in an old stone circle – with another woman buried alive beneath her.

The pressure on Shand is enormous. The case is baffling. There appears to be no link between the two crimes. The media is clamouring for answers. And Shand’s convinced his wife is having an affair with someone called Gabriel. Which just happens to be the name of the two chief suspects. Both are womanisers, and both produce a mystery woman - who sounds suspiciously like Shand’s wife - as their alibi, The pressure builds. Shand can’t sleep, a local journalist is out to discredit him, his wife is about to be dragged into the case and then, goaded at a press conference about lack of progress, he invents a lead. And keeps on lying – to the press, his boss, his team – telling himself that he'll solve the case before anyone finds out.

And then a second murder occurs. And had there been a third?

Shand begins to doubt his ability. He's desperate, increasingly unpredictable, pursued by an amorous psychic, and unjustly gaining a reputation for arresting livestock.

What's going to break first? The case, or Shand?

Many of you know that my choice, when I want a romance, is usually a Regency. Georgette Heyer's death was a great loss, and I would put up a shrine to Jane Austen if I had room in this place. Today I found out about Shannon Donnelly's work, and even better, she's joined Book View Cafe!

Reviewers praise her work as "simply superb," "wonderfully uplifting," and "beautifully written." She has a slew of awards and nominations for her writing, so for summer reading, you'll be in good hands. Shannon debuts with two novels for us, her RWA Golden Heart winner for Best Regency Romance, A Compromising Situation, and a Christmas heartwarmer called Under the Kissing Bough. (Kissing Bough was a finalist for the RITA, Best Regency Romance, the Beacon and the Golden Quill, and won the Laurel Wreath!)

(I actually listen to instrumental holiday music during the summer -- it makes me think it's cooler than it is. So I may not wait on that second book until the holidays!)

To read about Shannon, check out this link.

I'll report back on these after I read them, but as my reviewing is slower than my occasional reading, you might want to check them out before you hear back from me. They are an absolute steal at $2.99 each. As always, Book View Cafe books are DRM-Free. A Compromising Situation is available in your choice of EPUB (Sony, Kobo, Nook) and .mobi (Kindle) formats. Sample the book here.

Under the Kissing Bough is also DRM-free and also in EPUB and .mobi. I'll post a sample link as soon as I have a good one.

Like your ghosts with humor? Here's a new contemporary fantasy/mystery that's right up your summer reading alley! Get those e-readers ready! There's even a sample -- you know how I insist on a sample to read. Here's the scoop.

We're skipping Chris's biography this time, since it's been here recently. Just trust me -- he's a very funny man. Check out his blog posts over at www.blog.bookviewcafe.com if you don't believe me. (But he's a bit behind on them -- it's haying season in France, and you know that saying about "Haying while the sun shines?" Yes, that one -- it's true. He'll be back when the hay field is cut!)

Medium Dead (Fantasy/Mystery)
Chris Dolley
June 7, 2011
$3.99 ebook
ISBN: 978 1 61138 074 3

Reluctant medium, Brenda Steele, is smart, funny and out of her depth. A Vigilante Demon called Brian wants her to find murdered spirits and help him track down their killers. But Brian doesn't just catch criminals. He has an impish sense of humour and likes to play with them first. And make the punishment fit the crime.

Along the way, Brenda discovers that Brian isn't as old, or as powerful, as he led her to believe. He might even be human. Whereas the murderer they're hunting, and the child he's holding prisoner, might not.

Pati Nagle has a new e-book out, and the hero is a feline with opposable thumbs and the ability to talk. It's SF, of course, and talk about a dangerous and sneaky gumpaw detective! And the love interest is a Burmese -- Merlyn is excited about this story! I'll definitely put this one on my list.

EDIT: A sample from the book!

Here's the scoop (no pun intended...):

Book View Café Releases Pati Nagle's PET NOIR

Pet Noir (Fun SF/Mystery)
Pati Nagle
May 10, 2011
$4.99 ebook
ISBN: 978 1 61138 063 7

Can a lowly gumpaw hope for love with a girl who rides in a jewel-encrusted carrier?

Feline investigator Leon, with opposable thumbs and the ability to talk, is possibly the most dangerous cat in the galaxy. Indentured to the Security department of Gamma Station until the cost of his creation is paid off, Leon alternates between harassing his human partner/roommate Devin and fighting sleazoid criminals, yet still finds time to flirt with the lovely Leila, an exotic Burmese who lives in the swankiest level of the station. Will he win her heart, and more important—will he win his freedom?

There's always an eleventh hour edit with an e-book! But I sent it off, and I think the book will be available at Book View Cafe Tuesday the 29th! (I have no idea what that will work out to be with the other side of the world, but as soon as the server releases it, we're in business!)

Whee! She gets us!

No, my story is not especially singled out. I'm just in lovely company.