The results from the rematch of the Villaintine’s Rematch are in:

“The Things I’ll do to your heart, Valentine” is still the winner! I don’t know how to feel, because it is a really strong one (with its dark implicit threat and all), but I was quietly hoping that “If Evil, then why Hot?” might pull ahead, because I’m so very fond of it. But that is the voice of the people, and thank you so much for taking the time to vote!

I guess you all just love a dark implicit threat from a Hot Baddie…

Meet The New Character

I am so pleased to report that I can now go back to saying that “This newsletter is taking me away from working on Book IV, Blood Depths!” 😉

For those new to the newsletter (Hi there! 👋) my poor readers have been waiting for the next stage of Noosh’s journey through the world of the am’r for years now.

First I needed to leave my terrible old publisher and republish the books with IIP (which was a very intense and time-consuming learning experience), then my new publisher wanted some shorter works from me, so I wrote and published Blood Triad, Interview with the Vagabond King, Finding Bela Lugosi, and That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story, all of which pulled me away from Book IV. Then, getting the books into audiobook format kept me very busy with its own learning curve. Then, starting learning how to vend and the decision to try and have a very busy convention/event season last summer through Halloween was a serious pull away from the poor novel. Finally, just as I settled into making time for it, I’ve had to move in with my mom because of her health, and I lost a month of writing just taking her to doctor’s appointments and PT. (All of this while working around the limitations of my own chronic illness, which of course just makes it all so much more fun!)

But now it is February, I am a bit more settled in to life over here, and all I want to do is dive back in to Blood Depths 🌊 (Yes, pun intended.) Last week, as I was sitting around at a 2.5 hour appointment for my mother, I brought the laptop and started the work of reworking Chapter One. (Half the chapters I’ve managed to write have to be completely rewritten, which is too long a story to review here, but I promise the book will be immeasurably better for me doing this.)

This week I’m back at it, finishing up the new, improved chapter one.

I wanted the reason for all this work to be a big surprise to my readers, but that really only works if I can get a book out once a year. Once I’ve been keeping everyone waiting this long, trying to pull off that surprise no long makes sense, as by now I owe you all deeply informative updates on the process, to thank you for sticking around with me all this time 💖

So, I’m going to spill the beans! Noosh is being joined by a new character who is starting her own journey into the world of the am’r: Caaisho.

And as you see, my cover artist Kwasi has already been working with bring her to life!

Caaisho comes from a very different background than Noosh (obviously) and thus is going to respond to the am’r in totally different ways. Also, her introduction is not going to be all “meet-cute in the library” —after all, these are vampire pirates we are dealing with in this book! This is a bumpier road we are all going down together—because, say it with me, “Vampires are actually monsters and they don’t sparkle!” 🚫✨

I hope you’ll love Caaisho as much as you do Noosh. She is also a kick-ass strong woman, who will be bringing a very fresh attitude to dealing with the am’r and their vampiric shenanigans. Bagamil had wanted the am’r world to be shaken up a bit…but none of them are expecting Caaisho! (Here’s how to pronounce it, BTW)

Stay tuned to this channel 📺 to get to know this new character better as I finally get Book IV written for you 📝

The Winners Love Their Stained Glass Bookmarks!

Thanks to the first three of you who wrote in wanting to help me figure out shipping for the bookmarks—and I’m so pleased with how much you all love them 🔖💞

JT was kind enough to share this image 🥰

Happily, I found out that with the new small bubble mailers I bought, and how light the bookmarks are, that I can request it to be sent “First Class — non-machinable” and it costs less than a dollar to ship, so I can ship these for FREE!

Which I also can do if they are included in packages with books in, obviously! So if you have a friend who needs a signed copy of any of the books in the series (or if you are filling in your library), don’t worry that throwing one of these beauties in will up your shipping costs—they won’t!

Stained Glass Bookmark Blood Demands

These gorgeous — and durable — acrylic bookmarks will take your reading experience to the next level! They are 5″ x 1.875″ — a perfect size for every book in the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series — or any other book in your collection. And they won’t add any weight to your bookbag. The artwork is a “stained glass” FREE SHIPPING!

immoralinfluence.myshopify.com/products/stained-glass-bookmark-blood-demands

And now for a word from this week’s sponsor:

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Vampires have tails!

My Bizarreries segment is still running over in Warren Ellis’ newsletter Orbital Operations. You should go check it out, because he has really excellent recommendations for books, comics, music, and really random cool shit. I actually buy stuff based on his recs!

Click here to read the whole thing

OK, I think that’s enough for this week—I know you’d rather I be writing the next novel, so I’ll hit “publish” and get back to my proper work! And until two weeks from now, be good or be good at it!

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

We started the annual Villantine’s Day celebration with the Baddest Bad Guy of the series: Kurgan. As we ramp up to releasing the audiobook of Blood Eternal this year, I wanted to bring back the first batch of Villaintine’s cards back for a rematch ⚔️

The winner last time was “The things I’ll do to your heart, Valentine” — and while I do love the threatening nature of that one, I also love both the other options just as much…

The results from the first round…

Also, there are a lot more readers of this newsletter now than when I first ran this poll, so I think it’s only right that I run this one again, and let our new friends have their input on this deeply important matter. So here are your choices:

OK, now, here’s the poll. Let the best card win!

If you would like any of the images to send to friends, just let me know and I will send you the image, sized for easy email sharing 💌

I’ll announce the winner in the next newsletter, so stay tuned to this great channel 📺

Something kinda exciting has happened 💥

I now have a wee guest spot over at Warren Ellis’ newsletter (the comic book writer, novelist, and screenwriter), sharing “Raven Belasco’s Bizarreries” every week. His newsletter is one of the few I make time for regularly (along with Cecilia Tan’s and Tiffany Trent’s) so I recommend it highly to you.

This is the first one! Follow Orbital Operations to read the further ones!

Book Recommendation: Bound by the Blood 🩸🩸🩸

Two members of The Big Glasses Brigade 🤓

So, you all know my life has been subsumed by becoming the caregiver to my mother and needing to move in with her for the foreseeable future. But I did manage to get out yesterday to my salon for a very overdue haircut and color, and then after that to Cecilia’s book launch, which was conveniently at my beloved Pandemonium Books

I just frickin’ adore Cecilia. She is one of those people I can talk for hours with and then, when we have to go do other things, be sad because the conversation felt all-too-short.

Getting to be friends with Cecilia is one of the wonderful perks of having become an author. I’ve been a fan of C. Tan since, I dunno, college or right after? Pretty sure I found her in Blue Blood Magazine? This is a person whom I idolized from afar, and who I now get to be friends with?! I am a writer for many reasons … but the perk of getting to hang out with authors you adore is not to be sneezed at 😉

There was real excitement about this book, which is described as “An Urban Fantasy BDSM Romantic Suspense“ (so if you like those things, GO GET IT)

It’s on the top of my to-read pile, but you don’t need my review, because Cecilia has only gone and gotten a review from Anne Muthafuckin’ Rice’s son (I’m what you could call painfully jealous) and I probably couldn’t do a better review than this anyway:

If you haven’t voted, scroll back up and do so! And until two weeks from now, be good or be good at it!

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

As you will recall from the last email, my entire life has been thrown up in the air, as I have moved in with my mom to become her caregiver as we try to get her to be able to walk again. More about that later in the email, but I have finally started to move my office into her home, and get set up to do direct sales from her house, and all the stuff an indie author needs 😮‍💨

So I can finally share our incredible new reader swag: Stained Glass Bookmarks!

Everyone’s favorite cover!

I am totally in love with this one!

I wanted to present these gorgeous bookmarks to you all set and ready to go, but I am missing one vital piece of information for our Shopify store: how much USPS will charge for shipping them! I’m used to dealing with getting the books out, but for orders of just these amazing bookmarks by themselves, I have no idea what it will cost 🤔

So it’s giveaway time! 🎁

The first three people who email me and request either the Blood Ex Libris or Blood Demands bookmark will get their order for FREE, and you’ll be doing me a favor, as I both need to find out how much they cost to ship, and also get to know the local post office where I’m now living.

🆓 Email me and tell me which bookmark you want – you might win a free one!

I honestly can’t tell which one I like best!

Argh! They are so good! 🤩

OK, that’s all the business stuff for this email, keep reading if you just want to keep up with me, or go on about your day 🙂

It’s been a FUCKING INSANE two weeks since last I wrote to you. I’ve moved from my house into my mom’s guest bedroom (and office!) The first week, she was in terrible pain, and everything was a huge, exhausting production, and I spent every moment of the day attending to her and trying to get her life back in some kind of order, as well as doctor’s appointments and PT.

At the end of the second week, due to some useful pain management, we are doing a little better. I am hopeful that I might be able to get a few hours each day to myself to write and do the other business of being a writer.

Never have I wished that the am’r would pay me a visit more. Seeing what aging is putting my mom through is terrible, and as rough and violent as the am’r world is, getting old as a kee is a billion times harder…

If you have elderly people in your life, give them a call and tell them that they are superheroes who kick ass each day in the face of all that an aging body is throwing at them, and how unhelpful health care can be, and how poorly society in general treats the elderly 🦸‍♀️

OK, that all said, next month is going to have some far more exciting emails coming out to you. Because our annual Villiantine’s Day has not been forgotten! And even more exciting news to follow that…!

Archie helping me write this newsletter on my mom’s sofa

Until two weeks from now, be good or be good at it!

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

Hey Fabulous Readers!

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the January newsletters aren’t going to be quite as thrilling as I had planned. My Mom had a serious health situation back in October, and she isn’t recovering well. I needed to pack up myself and Archie and move in with her for a while to help her with physical therapy and all the stuff she needs to get back on her feet — literally!

However, this means I’m away from my office, and most of my time and energy will be going to helping out my mom, not doing cool stuff for the books. So all planned stuff has been abruptly moved to February, and thus the two January newsletters are not going to be packed full with all the exciting stuff that was previously scheduled.

What this means for you is actually not bad news, because I will only have my laptop with me, and there’s not much I can do on my laptop except work on my next novel. So in between physical therapy sessions and stuff, I will be full steam ahead on Blood Depths, without other business distractions getting in the way. Since I know this is what you all want most from me, well, like I said, not bad news for you!

I was thinking about what to do with these two “lost newsletters” for this month while I was walking Archie this morning, and I decided what I could give you during this time-period was a couple “getting to know Raven” deep dives, since that’s always something you Fantabulous Newsletter Readers seem to enjoy.

But first, for those of you who were too busy to go grab the Sandu Xmas story, it’s ready and waiting for you — and has gotten some great reviews so far 🥰

To start us off, here’s… How You Build A Bookworm

The seeds for my eventually being the writer you know today were planted very early. My mom read me Lord of the Rings when I was five years old, and it definitely gave me a standard of what to expect from reading, one that the public school system was not prepared for.

And I wanted to read! I came home crying from the first day of kindergarten, and my mom, very worried, asked, “What happened at school?” And I responded, “I didn’t learn how to read!”

Eventually, the alphabet had been banged into my brain, and I was reading sentences. I was not enjoying those sentences, because the school was giving me books like Gordon the Goat. Now, Gordan was not having The Battle of Five Armies or engaging with dragons, or visiting Lothlorien. As I recall, the highlight of Gordon’s day was eating a tin can. Not very compelling stuff.

The next family story about me and reading comes when my mom was called into school because I was failing reading comprehension, in first grade. They were giving us these cards with a story on one side, and questions about the story on the other side. I was answering those questions not just wrong, but like I was on drugs at that tender age.

Luckily for me, the first grade teacher cared about her students, and she had taken time to ask me some questions, and had figured out that I had read the stories on the front of the cards, thought they were deeply stupid, had rewritten them in my head to be better stories, and was then answering the questions based on my far superior narratives 😂

That was probably the last time my mom got called in for any issues with reading or writing, because it very soon became clear that I was having troubles with math, and that became the issue for the rest of my schooling. Since girls weren’t expected to be good at math anyway, nobody troubled to notice that I am dyscalculic. My mom was regularly told, “She can follow the logic of the word problems, then she just gets lazy with the math part.” 🙄

So math became something I dreaded and did as little of as possible, and reading became my escape.

I needed the escape because from second grade on, I was rated as a glasses-wearing nerd, a bookworm and general loser. I was picked last in gym, I had no friends, and basically was a living example of a character from Revenge of the Nerds.

The glasses really were the final nail in my social coffin…

I avoided dealing with those issues by reading every fantasy book that would hold still long enough, making no distinction between juvenile lit and adult fantasy novels. (Starting things off with Lord of the Rings had really ruined me for reading at my age level.) For a nerd, I got very bad grades, because during class I was often holding a fantasy novel under my desk and reading it instead of paying attention.

All of this, of course, was excellent preparation for being a writer later. I agree with Robert Heinlein that “Writing can be learned, but not taught.” I think the best thing anyone can do who wants to be a writer is to read voraciously, through all genres and styles of writing. Doing that not only exposes you to incredible examples of writing, but also shows you how to do every aspect of writing. More importantly, it also teaches you how NOT to do things. If you are reading something and think a character is intolerable or the plot is slow and uncompelling, well, there you go, there’s an example of how not to write! 😁

I could talk about this forever, but this is definitely long enough for a newsletter! For those of you who made it to this point, you are fucking amazing and I appreciate you 🥰

To all my readers, I hope your 2026 has started a bit more smoothly than mine, but at any rate, I look forward to being in contact with you twice a month in the year to come. Please feel free to respond to the newsletters (just hit reply, it’s that easy!) and chat with me about stuff. (There is starting to be a bigger readership, but I’m still at the point where I am accessible to you all. If my plans work out, there will come a day when you write to me and get a reply from my personal assistant who will tell you I appreciate your email but am too busy to respond personally — but since we aren’t there yet, take advantage of it 😉)

Until two weeks from now, be good or be good at it!

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

Since I know this story is what you want most, here is the link!

If you want to know more first, here’s some info:

The story is set at the same time as the first three chapters of Blood Ex Libris, but from Sandu’s perspective—and yes, that means you get the full story of his being am’r-napped and tortured that he only glosses over at the Big Am’r Summit in the Rave Cave.

So the two main features of the story are: seeing the meeting of Noosh and Sandu’s through Sandu’s eyes, and then the rest of the story is just the kind of thrilling torture and revengeful action-y escape that you want from holiday films like Die Hard, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Red One, or Violent Night. It’s got “Christmas-specific torture” — you’ll need to read it to get it, but I think you’ll all find it a kick in the pants

Plus, for those of you who prefer less open-door spice, this story takes place before all that gets going in Blood Ex Libris, so it’s just violent vampire action, not sexy vampire action. All the other stuff you love is there, however: swearing in Romanian, historical bits, global settings — the usual BAAS recipe for am’r goodness.

I didn’t mean to write this story this year. My publisher has been demanding it for some time now, and suddenly, in late November, the story just started happening in my brain, so I had to rush to get it out on the page.

It actually fucked up quite a few of my other plans, hustling to get the story done and edited and published before Xmas. So please go grab your copy, because I really put the sweat, blood, and tears into this one!

(There was supposed to be a fancier cover — I found a great artist and we were totally on the same page about the cover art, but then there was a misunderstanding about the delivery date. So there will be a better cover in the future, but for now I just wanted to get it out to you all, and since it’s an ebook, the title page works well enough until the real cover comes along.)

(N.B.—if you are completely opposed to spending money on Amazon — which I understand and believe me I wish I could sell books without involving Amazon at all — email me and we’ll get you the story another way)

This is the final newsletter of 2025! 🕰️

I’m exhausted. It’s been an insane year! 😵

📅January — IIP republished Blood Ad Infinitum as Blood Eternal (may I never have to rename a book EVER!) and I got to give a talk with Cecilia Tan to Emerson College about being an indie author

📅February — the second year of the Villaintine’s Day vote. I love this tradition! But also my hand surgery that totally messed up my writing schedule for the whole year

📅March — Die Feen released their song about Blood Eternal “Mistakes”

📅April – May — the drama of writing Finding Bela Lugosi for the doomed Bauhaus anthology, then finding out the editor of said anthology was “not someone you’d want to work with” (I am putting this so very delicately!) and then the quest for getting the rights to use the lyrics from “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” from Bauhaus, managing to get it published for World Dracula Day; plus doing readings online and posting videos about vampires and being an indie author (And it’s still free online!)

Instagram post

📅June — going to the literal Sunnydale Hellmouth and getting to do a panel with the most fantastic Amber Benson

📅July — That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story makes a huge splash, and I attend Readercon for the first time, and totally fall in love with the convention

📅August — Yet another article published in Book Life by Publisher’s Weekly. And I finally get back to work on Blood Depths

📅September — I try vending at new places, like the Dark Forest Oddities Expo (not the greatest success) and the Vampfangs Vampire Market (a shockingly great success)

📅October — I have the best time ever on The Historic Lesbian Motifs podcast and of course Paulette Kennedy’s Live series, and vending at my beloved Pandemonium, as well as having my bestie over for carving punkins on Halloween

Instagram post

📅November — Back into Blood Depths, but get surprise-attacked by the Sandu Xmas Story that demands to be written…

Editing the Sandu Xmas story two days ago, with the vital assistance of Archie, of course!

📅December — trip to LA to finally record Blood Eternal with Amber Benson, publish Dracula’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Christmas, and working on a whole bunch of other exciting stuff for 2026

I feel like it was a pretty damn important year for both the series and for me as an author and person. Writing the shorter stories proved to me as a writer that I can really get a lot out of writing things that aren’t novels (I had done it before, but once I started writing novels those really took over!) and they also brought a lot of new readers to the series.

One of my goals had been to get out there and vend more and attend more conventions. It was baby-steps, but I think I chose mostly good places and they were worth the time, energy, and money. Because of my chronic illness, committing to three-day events is terrifying, and even a one-day event can cause me to lose a week after in recovery time. My next goal is to figure out vending in a state where I’m not already set up for paying sales tax, and just doing as many conventions as my health will allow.

My biggest goal for 2026 is just to get Blood Depths written as fast and as well as I possibly can. While I think all the distractions in 2025 were worthy endeavors, there are a lot of new characters I can’t wait for you to meet, and I really just want to sink back into novel writing, and just do the thing I love most about being an author—you know, write books—with less Other Stuff getting in the way.

Thank you all for sticking with me through another year of trying to figure out how to do this indie author thing. You newsletter readers are really the rock in the storm for me, and I deeply appreciate every one of you who takes the time to read each bi-monthly email, respond to polls and other questions, and support each story as it comes your way.

I hope you have a safe and joyful holiday season, and I look forward to sharing the world of the am’r with you in 2026! 🥂 And of course, until the next newsletter, be good or be good at it!😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

I’m going to throw in some vital news and updates up front here, but then the rest of this newsletter is a travelogue sharing my recent trip to LA. I’m only posting it here, for you my beloved newsletter readers

🎉First and most importantly, I can now announce that Blood Eternal has FINALLY been recorded in audiobook 🎉

Read again (and of course!) by Amber Benson. You guys are hearing it first! There will be more news about the audiobook in the coming weeks, but read the travelogue below to get the inside scoop…

The Sandu Xmas story is done in the first draft and just sent to the editor! I’m trying to get a cover happening while she does her thang…

I will be vending at the Pandemonium Holiday Faire On Sunday Dec 14

Be there or risk Santa’s Naughty List!

I’ll bring free hot chocolate and of course my red sharpie for signing your books ✒️ ⁠ If you are looking to shop local and indie, or just need to grab a few more items to check off your own Santa list, there will be unique vendors selling a variety of geeky wares: Illustrations, hand-made stuffed animals, bags, jewelry, dice, and so much more 🎁 ⁠ The faire will run from 12 PM to 5 PM. See you there! ✨

There are also freshly printed copies of That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story (for those of you who somehow don’t have yours yet) so if you can come down and get it signed in person, I’ll be wearing my ugly Xmas sweater and serving up free hot cocoa!

If you live too far away, order your signed copies here and I will get them out to you ASAP. If you order in the next couple days there’s still time for books to get there to be under the tree or by the menorah, or wherever you pile your prezzies 🎁🎁🎁

Don’t forget, ebooks and audiobooks make great holiday gifts, and they don’t require worrying about shipping times. All my audiobooks are up on Audible, through your other preferred audiobook provider, or you can buy them directly from me to own without membership issues

Special LA Trip Travelogue—Ride Along With Raven As She Goes On An Author Adventure

📆 Friday 5^th

Flying out from BOS to LAX. Flight very full, but people are in good spirits and friendly, and it’s almost like the government shutdown didn’t wreck such disaster on commercial aviation just a few weeks ago.

Looking forward to six uninterrupted hours of editing the Sandu Xmas story…

California here I come!

Just woke up from an accidental three hour nap! I can’t ever sleep on planes, but I had packed myself a big container of Turkey Day leftovers, and apparently, enough tryptophan, carbs and fats will give me a case of “the itis” that will overcome even my discomfort in flying! Good to know for the future…but now I’m kinda annoyed I only got one hour of editing in

***

It was a really smooth flight, got my luggage with no problems, and now ensconced with my friend Mija in Long Beach. I love this town. I have been promised Mexican food every day I’m out here, to make up for the lack of it in MA. Tonight is tacos, baby! 🌮🌮

📆 Sat 6^th

Ugh, jet lag is horrible. Spending the day resting before having to be “on” in the evening.

Picked up by Lore to drive over to the movie viewings and dinner. We hold a business meeting through the infamous LA traffic. Very productive that way, at least!

***
Home, too tired to keep my eyes open. What an amazing evening! Met and chatted with some really fun and interesting people, doing cool projects. Watched two classic horror films (Equinox and The Blob) and learned about how they were made. Delicious mango sticky rice after dinner! And I got to ride a little train!

I was introduced tonight as “Raven Belasco—she’s an accomplished author,” so I’m going to need you all to add that to my name henceforth: “Raven Belasco—Accomplished Author”

(Very happy the little terrier in The Blob didn’t die! I was so worried about them! Was very glad to find out it ran away. I hope it ended up in a good place eventually. Also, possibly more worrying: does climate change mean that The Blob is going to eat us all?!)

📆 Sun 7^th

Heading to the studio shortly to do the final recordings for Blood Eternal. Excited to spend time with Amber, and finally meet our recording engineer par excellence, Eli, in person.

***
Exhausted, in bed. Can barely hold my eyes open, but want to get down these memories…

Today was one of the best days of my author career. Met Lore at the gorgeous little recording studio where Blood Eternal has been being recorded. Amber and Eli were already inside, starting the pickups. Came in, hugged people, got to work. It was so much fun, and so damn impressive, being there for the process and getting to help out a bit with the last tricky pronunciation issues.

Then, the part I’d had some butterflies for: me getting behind the mic myself, to record the opening and closing parts of the book.

Back in college, I’d had a radio show (the Indigo Hours, where I played jazz and blues) and in my previous job for the language course company I ended up in their recording studio a number of times. But it had been a hot minute since I was trying to sound all professional with a mic in hand.

I did my best, enjoyed myself, and they say I sounded good (I’ll find out soon enough if they were just being kind!) and that was a wrap on Blood Eternal!

Me being a little too excited about “That’s a wrap!”

We celebrated with a meal at an amazing café, and sat and talked into the afternoon. The café had these insane gluten free waffles, and a lavender matcha, and so my part of the discussion was very much powered by caffeine and sugar.

Lore and I wandered around a bit after that, having a roving business meeting that included wandering around The Ripped Bodice, and ending up in a boba joint.

I’d run out of spoons some time ago by that point, and getting back to Long Beach included a stop at the wonderful Mexican place from the other night and getting more delicious tacos and mango agua fresca.

Passing out now 😵

📆 Mon 8^th

The original plan for the day got rescheduled for a future trip, so today was a “free day,” and in discussion with Mija, I realized what I wanted most was to sit in a café and write. (Technically, edit, but since I love all the stages of writing that’s all good.) So she suggested an appropriate spot called The Library Coffee Shop and after brunch and a visit to the dog park with her fantastic pup, we finally found ourselves ensconced there with caffeine (I got a fantastic latte called the Vanilla Goddess, and which lived up to the name!) and our laptops open, as we sat and wrote together.

Coffee and editing

💥Well, I have an exciting announcement to make—to my surprise 💥

Due to some other things that I still can’t yet announce [vibrates with frustration] there has been a thrilling development in the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series stories

For Supah Sekrit Reazins, the period of time in Blood Ex Libris where Sandu disappears out of Noosh’s life for three months (right in the first chapters of the book) needed to be told from Sandu’s point of view, giving the full story of his capture, torture, and escape for the very first time…

And, since it takes place over the holiday season, well, if Die Hard can be an Xmas movie, this story should absolutely follow in that grand tradition 🧨🎄🧨

So, the first draft of the story is going to be complete before Turkey Day, and after that it will be beaten into shape by my amazing editor, and gotten out in ebook form in time for holiday shopping!

This was, as you will remember from previous emails, so very much NOT the plan. But since I need this story pronto, and since it’s being very obliging and damn near writing itself, I am not fighting the utter reworking of my life and calendar.

Those of you who have been grumbling about how often Blood Depths has been put off will be grumpy with me, I understand. However, I cannot deny the results of the last newsletter’s poll, wherein those of you who want to see rough snippets were very vocal and undeniable.

FINE THEN, but only because you insist

So, I’m going to bow to your demands—which is not easy for me because I really prefer to present finished drafts of things and pretend they were that good from the very start —and start including “The Raw View” into newsletters.

Because of the few of you who didn’t not want the slightest bit of spoilers, I will always put that section at the bottom of the newsletter, and give lots of warning in advance.

The 100 Minutes War

My pretty boy and me, in our Viking-era finest. Be terrified!

I would have spent the whole weekend on the computer banging out the whole story in just seven days, except for the fact that I had made plans I couldn’t get out of for last weekend. The SCA event called the 100 Minutes War happens this November weekend every year—generally taking over my birthday, but that’s not a terrible thing, because it’s one of my favorite SCA events of the year, and I get to see lots of people whom I adore.

I didn’t get a lot of pictures this year, because I was showing my bestie and her husband around their first SCA event, and working with Archie to set him up for success in being a good and happy Service Dog, so I didn’t have the phone out much for pictures. However, here is Archie and me in our matching Viking garb in a rare quiet moment in the day.

It was very good to be off-screens for the weekend, and the later good whisky and good mead fueled naked hot-tub-under-the-stars party was really a quite perfect way to celebrate a birthday! (There were three people celebrating their birthdays in the tub, so we had a fair bit of celebrating to get through! And, no, there will be no pictures from that 😂)

But now, rejuvenated by getting as close to an am’r sort of weekend as one can get and still be kee (there was a huge pitched battle plus dubious decisions in a hot-tub 😂) I’m getting back to work getting you the stories you need! Indeed, I would already be back in the Sandu Xmas story if I didn’t have to write this newsletter, so I’m going to keep it short and get back to what you really want from me…

🆕 The Raw View 🥩 🆕

Here’s a touching reunion of dear old friends from the Sandu Xmas story (title forthcoming as soon as I can make up my mind)

⚠️⚠️⚠️ WARNING SPOILERS ⚠️⚠️⚠️ WARNING SPOILERS ⚠️⚠️⚠️

Now that you’ve had a taste of it, I hope you’re looking forward to the story as much as I am to sharing it with you! 💖

To those who have made it this far down, you are fucking amazing and I adore you! Until two weeks from now, be good or be good at it!😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

Post the insane Spooky Season events and marketing drive, it’s a time of fallowness for this author. Of course I’ll do a bit of Winter Holiday stuff, but the real highlight of my book promotion year has just passed, and now I want to just focus inward—and get that next novel closer to publication 💪

That means the newsletter this month are not going to be the high energy, thrilling affairs you’ve gotten used to. If what I am doing is research and pure creation, it’s not much to write about. Here are some pictures from the weekend, of me continuing the research part…

At the library, grabbing 2 more research books!

Diving right into the research, with my co-author helping!

But yeah, unless I share snippets of the writing with you, we’re not in a very dynamic place right now—from your point of view. From mine, I’m actually in the place I like best, which is just me and the page, and the words pouring out of my mind onto the page.

Where, sadly, they won’t come out perfect the first time, but will require lots of editing—and sometimes being deleted in chunks and completely reworked. But I’m a very weird writer, and I actually enjoy the “polishing” process as much as the pure creativity part, so as far as I’m concerned, all the best parts of being a writer are ahead of me, this month.

There’s a bunch of new readers to this newsletter—warm greetings to those of you who signed up at the Pandemonium Spooky Geek Faire! So I thought for this newsletter I’d go back and tell the story of how Blood Ex Libris came to be in the first place.

I knew I’d wanted to be an author all the way back in 1st Grade. (Although it was “author-illustrator” at the time. Sadly, reality has forced me to admit the fact that I cannot draw images the way I can draw with words.) In case you were wondering, this “what do I want to do when I grow up moment” came in between “paleontologist” (which since I couldn’t say my “l”s yet was said as “paweontowogist”) and “the Goddess Athena” (I apparently thought it was the kind of job that would have openings—which turned out later to be the plot of Fred Saberhagen’s excellent Books of the Gods fantasy series, so I was not the only one thinking about that!)

I wrote stories. I had “published” my first book by then. It was about the legend of the phoenix, and it was called “The Firebird,” and I did both the story and illustrations in Crayola marker. “Publication” was being displayed in the local library. I was deeply proud.

I was constantly working on stories after that. I always had a story I was working on, but the novels never got more than a few chapters in.

When I was 17 I became sick and never got well again. I was finally diagnosed with ME/CFS, but before I ever got a diagnosis I had found one of the things that would help get me through, and that was science fiction. I started by plundering my parent’s library, then whenever I was well enough I dragged my unwell ass to the local library and brought home huge stacks of books, which I used as pure escapism from my physical reality.

It was then that I first read Robert Heinlein and Samuel Delany. Both of those writers made me decide, “I can really do this!” and I started writing a science fiction novel.

The first iteration of the science fiction novel that I will actually finish someday…

That novel got stopped and restarted for years, each time coming in at a different angle. I kept realizing that I hadn’t really lived enough to tell the story I wanted to tell. I was keeping busy with life (getting my research in! 😂) so there was no rush—but I had no doubt that I was a writer and that I would eventually get a novel done and out into the world.

And then one night, I dreamed the first sex scene from Blood Ex Libris—in detail! I woke up, and grabbed my laptop and wrote it out. In doing so, I realized I knew it was Vlad Dracula but he was going by another name, and I knew a fair bit already about the main character Noosh. So I went back to the beginning of the story and started writing it, to catch up to that first sex scene.

And then I kept going. There was a huge set-back when I lost about 3000 words I’d written, and I stopped writing for six months because I was so upset about it, but I finally got over it and dove back into finishing the story. (It’s crazy to me now that I nearly didn’t write the book because I had lost only 3000 words. On a good day, I can write that many words in one day!)

Anyway, that’s the story of how Blood Ex Libris, and the whole Blood & Ancient Scrolls Series began. There’s a lot more story about the story, about how I managed to get it out into the world for you to read, but that’s for another time.

I’ll go back to working on the next novel now, as I know so many of you wish I’d get it out NOW. Thank you for your patience in waiting for it! And thank you to all who made it this far in the newsletter today. You are the bestest of fans and I so deeply appreciate you! 💖

Until the next newsletter, be good or be good at it! 😉

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

This is it! The week of Halloween! I don’t know what you’ve been doing (possibly focusing on small wee issues in other aspects of life, not that there is anything news-worthy happening these days…) but as you can see from my previous September and October newsletters, this holiday has taken over my life for two months.

That’s OK. I chose this life when my subconscious presented me with a dream that would become the first words I wrote in Blood Ex Libris, and I chose it again when I pushed myself to write the whole book, no matter how hard it was (it was not the first novel I started writing, but it was the first novel I finished), and I chose it every day, because it would be vastly easier to get a normal day job that pays the bills, not trying to make it as an indie author in this cold and uncaring world.

Since I chose it every day—“Every day is Halloween”—here I am at the rewarding end of an intense and exhausting … well, let’s call it a “crucible,” in honor of the play about the Salem Witch Trials, and thus stay on theme 😉

I have a lot to get to in this newsletter, so let’s dive into the open top of the jack-o-lantern, shall we?

First Off Is Poll Results & This Year’s Halloween Costume Pictures!

The results of the “What book would you like to go on sale for Halloween?” poll was hands-down That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story 🏴‍☠️🎉

So Archie and I both dressed in pirate garb, to celebrate That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story. (He and I are both more pansexual than “lesbian,” but we hopefully got the “vampire pirate” part down 😁)

On the ultimate nerdy level, these images were shot at an SCA event, which provided a lovely wooden building that was reasonably a pirate ship. Of course, this did also mean that the attendees of the event were affectionately teasing me about being a pirate the rest of the day 😂 Here, for your enjoyment, are the results…

https://a.co/d/4xQgOMV

https://a.co/d/4xQgOMV

https://a.co/d/4xQgOMV

https://a.co/d/4xQgOMV

https://a.co/d/4xQgOMV

https://a.co/d/4xQgOMV

As you see, I saved the best for last, as Archie is really stepping up his role as “author’s dog” by now being the most compelling part of the marketing 😁 And as per your request, That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story (in ebook) is dropped to ONLY 99c until midnight on October 31^st! I’m not planning to do this sale ever again, so if you do not already have your ebook copy, avast ye and grab yer plunder!

(If you want a paperback copy and think it’s unfair that only the ebook is on sale, email me and tell me you demand a sale on the paperback in the grand piratical tradition. I will send along a coupon code, because one must respect the Pirate Code!)

 Last Sunday was Pandemonium’s Spooky Geek Faire…

and let’s just say it reaffirmed that Pandemonium Books & Games is one of the best places in the world to vend. I love the staff at Pandy, and I love the people who frequent the store. “Freaks, Nerds, and Weirdos” was an MTV program back in the ‘90s, and it’s the people who I feel most comfortable around (being all three of those things, myself) and it pretty well describes the fabulous people who come through Pandy’s doors. So I knew that the people walking past the my table would enjoy all the elements of my books: the dark fantasy/horror genre to start, and then the working in of historical characters with nerdy Easter Eggs, my method of creating the am’r using both myth and science, the fantasy language I created for the series, and of course, Noosh being a librarian and loving books so much! (Also the queerness—there is much intersection of the queer communities and the geeky communities 🩷❤️🧡💛💛💚🩵💙💜🤎🖤)

My bestie came out to sit with me (and sell my books better than I can) and while I had intended to take a bunch of pictures, we ended up with only this selfie—but what more did we need?

Caffeined-up vampire pirates ready to sell you books!

The Art of Writing Vampires, with Paulette Kennedy

Last week I had a treat I’d been waiting for all spooky season, to discuss the art and science of writing vampires. If you missed it, click below for the whole discussion, in which I explain my “Build-A-Vampire Workshop” theory and bring up an old Romanian myth where vampires had tails…

Instagram post

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What’s next?

First and most important, the rest of the newsletters for this year will go back to having regular updates of my progress in the next novel. Yay yay yay! You don’t know how frustrating it’s been not to be working on that 🫤

But besides that, there are about to be two Very Big Announcements that I think will have you all very excited. I’ve been working on some stuff behind the scenes and not able to mention it (which is also frustrating 😂 ) so keep watching this space for more‼️

For those of you who have read this far, have an amazing Hallowe’en and please send me pictures of you in costume or your decorations! 🎃 Until two weeks from now, be good or be good at it!😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff

The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast

I had an amazing time talking with Heather Rose Jones on her wonderful and detailed podcast about queer women in history and historic literature, plus coverage of the field of sapphic historical fiction.

Here’s the link to the episode, Episode 325: On the Shelf for October 2025. The interview with myself starts at 26 minutes in.

After we finished the interview, we kept chatting for another hour! It turns out that Heather is also in the SCA, so we had a of shared experiences and overlapping interests. It was actually really good that I hadn’t stalked her too hard before the interview, because after it was, over, I googled her name and realized that I’ve been using resources that she put online about historic sewing methods for years. If I’d know it was that Heather Rose Jones, I would have been all fan-girly and tongue-tied 🤓🤪

The Spooky Geek Faire is only FIVE days away! 🗓️⁠

This image is also a teaser for this year’s Halloween pictures… 👻

Featuring vendors with one-of-a-kind art pieces, handmade plush, illustrations, comics, books, and more! ⁠No sign-up or entrance fee are necessary to attend.

Sunday, October 19th from 12 PM to 5 PM at Pandemonium Books & Games 4 Pleasant St, Cambridge, MA 02139

I WILL be bringing my famous mulled cider again this year, so come down, buy any of the books from the series that you are missing or get your books signed, and have a glass of cider and hang out in one of the coolest places in the Boston Area!

Author-y stuff

I discovered over my time doing vending that the old first person description on the back of my novels was turning some potential customers off, so I took a moment to make new back-of-book text and to add some wonderful new blurbs to the cover as well. I’m really happy how it came out—here’s a video of me unboxing them and you can see the delight on my face!

And now a word from our sponsor…

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Oct 23^rd will be a special Halloween LIVE with Paulette Kennedy

Paulette is brilliant fucking author, and if you haven’t read anything by her yet, you have a real treat in story for you. She writes this kind of historical feminist gothic fiction that is absolutely addictive. It’s hard to say which my favorite of her books is, but I am deeply fond of The Artist of Blackberry Grange, which (I think) is the most delightfully escapist of all her work. Her newest project is still available in Kickstarter, as part of the Once Upon A Gothic set, and it’s a retelling of Dracula from the eyes of one of Dracula’s brides. I had the privilege of reading it as an advance review copy and it’s soooooo good. You should definitely check the set out.

Anyway, now that I’ve given Paulette due adulation, I’m so excited to announce that I get to hang out with her (and all of you) on October 23^rd on her page on Instagram, doing an IG live to talk about vampires and Halloween and Things That Go Bump In The Night. This newsletter won’t be published again until after the 23^rd , so I recommend that you either go follow Paulette or keep an eye on my IG page, as I will be posting a notification there before showtime.

The last time we talked was a really excellent conversation, but in the year intervening we’ve gotten to know each other better and had this deeply satisfactory mutual appreciation society develop 🥰 so this year the discussion is going to be absolutely next level, two literary geeks just feeding off each other’s intelligence and having a blast with it, so seriously, don’t miss it!

And Now It’s Time! YOU Choose the Halloween Sale! 🫵

I couldn’t make up my mind on which book(s) should go on sale this Halloween. And then I thought, “You know, the Newsletter Readers always know best: Ask Them!” So that’s exactly what I’m doing. Are you missing a book from the series? Need one to give as a gift? It’s like “Trick or Treat” only it’s just the treat 😁

Finally, I did that video for Banned Books week that I talked about in the last newsletter. Here it is. I got a little passionate as I was making it, so when I start talking about your first amendment rights, I actually surprised myself by getting really heated, which you can actually see. I knew I cared deeply about this topic, but was not expecting to get so passionate on camera like that!

For those of you who have read this far, I’m YOUR fan, you glorious and fantastic creature! 😍 Until two weeks from now, be good or be good at it!😘

💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

💞 Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

SHOP PAPERBACKS:

Blood Ex Libris

Blood Demands

Blood Eternal

Blood Triad

GET SOME SHORT STORY ACTION:

Interview with the Vagabond King

That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story

SHOP EBOOKS & AUDIOBOOKS:

Grab the whole series in Amazon’s KU

Listen to the series as you do other stuff