Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
Friday Fun! Cover Reveal for CHANGING FACES, Coming in the Fall of 2015
Folks, with all the turmoil going on in the world these days, I wanted to share some good news.
The cover for my contemporary fantasy/romance novel CHANGING FACES is already here! (In other words: Time for a cover reveal.)
Take a look at this cover, courtesy of cover artist Tamian Wood. (Isn’t it great?)
The two faces being depicted are those of Allen Bridgeway, Master’s student in clarinet performance at (fictional) Willa Cather University in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Elaine Foster, Allen’s fiancée and fellow clarinetist at Willa Cather U. (Elaine starts off as an English Master’s student.)
Now, why do I call this book CHANGING FACES? It’s because Allen and Elaine are about to change places with one another…and it comes about because of two aliens who may as well be angels.
Why do these aliens/angels decide that Allen needs to be in Elaine’s body, and Elaine in Allen’s? Well, these two musicians have had a very tough time of it. Elaine, years ago, was brutally raped while still a child in the foster system. (She had another name, then; she chose the name “Elaine Foster” afterward.) She’s been with Allen for years, wants to marry him…but cannot accept her own body or her body’s responses.
Deep inside, she thinks she’d rather be a man. But she loves Allen. If only her body didn’t keep giving her fits…and then she tells Allen something devastating: Even though she loves him, she has to leave. She can’t go on living like this.
So they get in the car. It’s mid-December, and the roads are icy. And they get into a car accident. A bad one.
When Allen wakes up in the hospital, he’s in Elaine’s body (as the aliens/angels performed a body-switch). He’s still male, but now he looks female. And he’s dealing with a multitude of injuries, including a concussion, so he doesn’t really know what to do. But he’s still Allen inside, even though he can’t seem to tell anyone.
And when Elaine “wakes,” she’s actually inside Allen’s body but doesn’t know it. She’s not awake at all, you see; she needs to talk with one of the aliens/angels, but as this particular entity is an Amorphous Mass, it has trouble representing in the physical world. (BTW, Elaine quickly decides to call the Mass “Moe” — for “Mass of Ectoplasm,” out of the Ghostbusters movie).
What will these two lovers do, now that they are in this predicament? Will it actually help Elaine to know she’s now outwardly male — that is, if she can ever wake up from the coma? And how will Allen react, now that the world thinks he’s female?
One thing’s clear, however: When you have found your soulmate, the universe will do almost anything to keep you together. Even change your faces.
———-
Before anyone asks, I still do not have cover art for A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE. The best guesstimate for when the second half of the Elfy duology will come out is early October, whereas the best guesstimate for CHANGING FACES is probably early November.
Happy Friday!
My Fifth Blogiversary — and a Great New Review for “To Survive the Maelstrom”
Folks, this is my fifth “blogiversary” — that is, the fifth anniversary of my blog, affectionately known as the Elfyverse. (Or Barb Caffrey’s Elfyverse, if you prefer.) Here, I’ve talked about everything that interests me, whether it’s baseball, politics, current events, music, writing, or something else — whatever it is, I’ve probably discussed it.
(Writers do that, y’know.)
Anyway, today I have a special treat for you, in that Pat Patterson of Papa Pat Rambles reviewed my story “To Survive the Maelstrom” over at Amazon — and he gave it five stars. (Thank you, Pat!)
Here’s the blurb for “To Survive the Maelstrom,” which was written in my late husband Michael B. Caffrey’s Atlantean Union universe (and thus he is credited):
Command Sergeant-Major Sir Peter Welmsley of the Atlantean Union has lost everything he holds dear. He wonders why he lived, when so many others died at Hunin — including his fiancée, Lydia, and his best friend Chet.
Into his life comes Grasshunter’s Cub, an empathic, sentient creature known to those on Heligoland as a “weremouse.”
Weremice are known for their ability to help their bond-mates. But how can this young weremouse find a way to bring Peter back from the brink of despair and start living again?
So if you want to read “To Survive the Maelstrom” in honor of my fifth blogiversary — or just because you like solid military SF — please go to Amazon and grab yourself a copy. (I do intend to get this story to Barnes and Noble and Smashwords within the next ninety days, somehow, but for now it’s on KDP Select. So if you have Kindle Ultimate, you can read “To Survive the Maelstrom” for free — right now.)
New Review Up at SBR, and my Writing Journey Continueth…
Folks, before I forget, go read my review of Deborah J. Ross’s epic fantasy THE SEVEN-PETALED SHIELD. (You’ll be glad you did.)
Why did I want to start with that? Well, it’s rare to see a strong, yet quiet and scholarly woman as the heroine of an epic fantasy. Yet Tsorreh, heroine of THE SEVEN-PETALED SHIELD, is exactly that — and I loved reading about her.
In fact, I enjoyed reading about her so much that I delayed reviewing THE SEVEN-PETALED SHIELD for several months. I was afraid I would not do justice to it, because when you reduce the plot to its bare bones, it sounds like many other epic fantasy novels.
But it’s nothing like them. It isn’t predictable (except that Tsorreh’s son Zevaron is young, impetuous, and you want to kick some sense into him, but isn’t that the way of younglings everywhere?). It’s quite spiritual. And the writing, editing, and presentation of Tsorreh’s journey is so good that I wasn’t sure anything I said would come close to matching it.
I don’t often feel quite this overawed by fiction, mind. (Not even by someone with the stature and longevity of Deborah J. Ross in the field of science fiction and fantasy.) In fact, me feeling like this is quite rare…and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.
Anyway, I’ve now reviewed it over at Shiny Book Review (SBR for short, as always), and I even wrote a review (a different one, earlier this evening) over at Amazon. I think very highly of this book, and I hope that if you like my work and trust in what I say, you’ll give it a try. (Trust me — it’s different. And it’s even better than my words have made it out to be.)
Now, as for my writing journey?
Most of you know that I’m going to put out my late husband Michael B. Caffrey’s Columba Chronicles again. (They were briefly available in 2010 and into 2011 via E-Quill Publishing in Australia.) But I realized on my re-reads that there was more that needed to be added.
It’s kind of like what I’ve tried to do with Michael’s military science fiction. I know there is more to the story. I try to add it, and remain faithful to Michael’s words; then, as I feel more confident, I write in Michael’s milieu and do what I think he’d do if he were still alive. (Or at least what I want to do, because I believe he’d trust me enough to know what that is.)
So right now, I plan to write a story about Cat, Columba’s husband the shapechanger. (We find out about Cat and his unusual courtship of Columba in the “Columba and the Cat” novella, available now.) I’ve called this “The Quest for Columba,” and I’m even mentioning it in the “coming soon” part of all of the novellas currently out there (including the two earliest, “A Dark and Stormy Night,” and “On Westmount Station“).
You see, I figure Cat’s story is vital to understanding why he went after Columba in the first place. Michael only hints at it. But I know how he worked, and I think he would’ve written about it if he’d only had time.
There also was another story on the way that Michael did not get a chance to finish called “Columba and the Cromlech.” I have tried a few times over the past several years to get into that. My problem was always that I didn’t completely get where Cat was coming from, and because of that, I only could write Columba. (And my version of Columba was always a little more in-your-face than Michael’s.)
However, once I finish “The Quest for Columba,” I think I will again turn my attention to “Columba and the Cromlech,” and will have a much better idea as to where that story is going.
That being said, my version of the second story Michael wrote, “Columba and the Crossing,” will be different than the version E-Quill Publishing put out in 2010. I’m adding in more romance, as I think it’s needed — Michael left a lot in subtext, and I think at least some of it needs to be brought out.
Furthermore, I’ve gotten much better at matching Michael’s writing style even though it’s a thousand times different than mine. And because of that, I feel far more confident in adding my own touches. I knew my husband very well, and I believe that he would want me to do this — since he’s not able to bring these stories to their complete fruition, I believe he’d trust me enough to add what I know must be there.
Maybe this sounds strange to you. Perhaps it is strange. I haven’t a clue as to how other writers do this, though I’ve read what Brandon Sanderson said about his collaboration with Robert Jordan (facilitated by his widow the editor), I’ve read what Ursula Jones said about collaborating with her sister Diana Wynne Jones after the latter passed away, and I’ve done my best to figure out what these authors did and why they did it after the fact.
But no one has collaborated with their deceased spouse when neither of them was well-known. That means there’s no road map to what I’m doing, and no one can give me much in the way of advice other than “Trust yourself” or “You’re a better writer than you think” or even “Michael trusted you, so why can’t you believe in yourself more than this?”
All of these things are good to hear, mind. (Don’t get me wrong about this.) And I have listened.
Still, this is my path. I chose it years ago after Michael unexpectedly passed on. I didn’t know how I would do it, but I said I would find a way — and I am.
I only hope that readers will enjoy what I’m doing, and know that there’s a method to my madness. Because I really believe that Michael would be trying to do exactly what I’m doing…even though I can’t prove it.
Time for a July #MFRWhooks Blog Hop, Atlantean Union-Style!
OK, OK…WordPress did something weird here, and posted this a full day earlier than I scheduled it.
I’m still very happy to do the #MFRWhooks Blog Hop for this novella, set in my late husband’s Atlantean Union milieu.
Now, back to my original post.
Folks, I am a proud member of the Marketing for Romance Writers organization. They do a lot of good for authors, most particularly small press and indies…and they’ve given me many tips that I’ve found quite useful.
One of the other things they do is on every Wednesday, they open up something called “BookHooks.” It’s an opportunity to “hook” new readers, something no writer can do without.
As I have two new releases out — and as I’ve already done a paranormal blog hop or two in previous weeks for Michael’s “Columba and the Cat” novella — I figured I’d rather take part this week with my new military science fiction novella, “To Survive the Maelstrom.” (My late husband is credited, because I wouldn’t have written this story at all without the two thousand words he left behind.)
Here’s the blurb:
Command Sergeant-Major Sir Peter Welmsley of the Atlantean Union has lost everything he holds dear. He wonders why he lived, when so many others died at Hunin — including his fiancée, Lydia, and his best friend Chet.
Into his life comes Grasshunter’s Cub, an empathic, sentient creature known to those on Heligoland as a “weremouse.”
Weremice are known for their ability to help their bond-mates. But how can this young weremouse find a way to bring Peter back from the brink of despair and start living again?
And now, a few sentences from “To Survive the Maelstrom” that explain exactly what Peter’s emotional state is before he meets up with his destined weremouse:
How long had it been since he’d smiled? Three months, perhaps? Surely the six months he’d spent in a medically induced coma while his skin regrew didn’t count . . . did it?
Even the pleasant heat of the spring couldn’t keep him away from his thoughts any longer. Why hadn’t the damned pirates left Hunin the Hell alone? Nine times out of ten, they ran; the tenth time, like Hunin, they stood and fought. And this time, they’d landed a lucky shot on HMS Niobe, where Peter had served as a platoon sergeant. Peter had quickly assumed command in the emergency as the senior NCO, considering all of the officers were dead or incapacitated.
But it hadn’t been enough.
Why was he alive, when so many good people were dead?
Now, in case you were intrigued by this sample, go to Amazon forthwith and get yourself a copy. (Right now, Amazon is the only place that has it, though in 90 days I hope to get “To Survive the Maelstrom” up at Barnes and Noble and Smashwords as well.)
And do check out the other participants in this week’s blog hop, will you? They’re all wonderful authors, and you might just find yourself a new favorite if you only give ’em half a chance.
New #ParanormalLoveWednesdaysBlogHop w/excerpt from Michael’s “Columba and the Cat”
Folks, this is the second time I’ve done the Paranormal Love Wednesdays Blog Hop. (The first time was last week, and was for AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE.) This time, I’m doing it in support of my late husband Michael B. Caffrey’s story “Columba and the Cat.”
Years ago, this story was available at e-Quill Publishing in Australia, but I withdrew it in 2012 after I was picked up by Twilight Times Books as an author. While I appreciated e-Quill’s interest in Michael’s work very much, I felt I could perhaps do a little better on my own…I just needed to get the skills together to do justice to his work.
Anyway, I now have more of those skills. I’ve found friends and allies over at the Marketing for Romance Writers group (do look them up if you’re a writer; they’re incredibly helpful people), and some of those authors set up the Paranormal Love Wednesdays Blog in order to showcase paranormal works a little better. 
Michael’s “Columba and the Cat” certainly qualifies.
What’s it about? As I said yesterday:
“Columba and the Cat” is about Princess Columba of Illinowa. She’s a magician, a scholar, and is currently the heir to the throne…and wants no part of it. Because she’s royalty, she’s had trouble meeting men, and she’s tired of dealing with people in search of a title rather than herself.
Into her life comes a mysterious cat. (Literally. The cat nearly gets run over while she’s out riding.) She rescues the cat, takes him into the palace, and starts having unusual dreams — dreams of a man who understands her, cares about her, and loves her. Unbeknownst to Columba, the cat is a shapeshifter. He, too, is royal, albeit from far away. And he’s the man of her dreams…that is, when he’s not in the form of a cat.
Then the dream-man shows up, and the cat disappears. Columba must decide whether or not to believe in her dreams and hope that somehow, all of the magical romance she’s found is here to stay.
I don’t yet have a link for the story as it’s not yet up. (EDITED TO ADD: Here’s a link for everyone!) But I do have an excerpt, cover art, and a banner. I do hope people will love this excerpt and will want to read the rest of the story.
First, the banner: 
Now, the excerpt (apologies in advance; it’s a bit longer than four paragraphs):
Again it seemed that Cat could understand what she was saying, as he rolled to the side and off the Princess-Royal’s body.
Columba looked at him in surprise — how had he realized that the only way he could have stood and walked on her nightdress was to dig in with his claws? And how — and why — had he figured out so quickly how to remove himself so quickly without having to use those claws?
Yes, if she could convince him to stay — and if he had the other qualities necessary — Cat was the familiar for her.
After a few minutes, she came back out, brushing her shoulder-length blond hair, and turned down the covers. She sat on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair and making inconsequential chat to Cat, constantly amused at his occasional mew or mrowr as she paused, almost as if he was truly interested in the court gossip she had picked up during the hour between the ceremony and dinner. After a bit, she finished with her hair and set the brush on the bedside table, then swung her legs under the covers and pulled them up.
A wave of her hand was enough to douse the magelights in the room, leaving only the firefly glow of a single light in the bathroom to reflect off Cat’s eyes as he gazed through the dark at her.
“Mrow?” the animal inquired, an almost plaintive note in his voice.
Columba chuckled gently, then lifted the cover. It was a cold winter’s evening, after all, and Cat looked uncomfortably thin, despite his size. “If you’re cold, you can come in here with me, darling.”
With a gentle rustling, Cat crossed the short distance from his chosen pillow nest to rub against Columba’s face before crawling carefully under the covers and turning around to lay against her breast, his head under her chin and his whiskers tickling the exposed skin above the open neck of her flannel nightdress. With an uncharacteristic giggle, Columba let the sheet drop and snuggled Cat close, her eyes closing as his rumbling purr began to lull her to sleep. As she drifted off, she almost thought that she heard something stirring . . . most likely the wind was her last lazy thought before sleep claimed her.
In the night, Princess-Royal Columba had the most wondrous dreams — dreams of a strange prince, not overly handsome as many of her dream princes had been, but not totally shabby either, with hair that almost the color of her new most favorite pet’s fur, but features she could not clearly discern. The prince courted her assiduously, slowly, over the course of months in that night’s dream, obtained at last her promise that she would be his.
The first dream faded into vague images she could not recall — stallions and mares, springtime, birds in their nests with the little birds chirping for food — and a sense as if she was riding one of those stallions back and forth across a plain of short, bluish-green grass, almost the color of the sheets on her royal bed. It was a wonderful ride, this dream-gallop, farther and harder than she’d ever ridden before, with breaks to rest the horse and herself, an electric ride that sent surges of pleasure through her. Eventually, that dream faded back into her dream prince, clasping her in his arms, gently kissing her lips, then her throat . . . .
* * *
Note: For my friends in the Fantasy and Science Fiction Network, and for romance readers everywhere, this is as spicy as it gets. It’s somewhere between a PG and a PG-13 as far as a rating goes…Michael believed strongly in romance, but he also believed the best romances took place privately. So there should be nothing here that offends anyone’s sensibilities.
I hope that piqued your interest…now, get back to hopping, and go visit the next person up in the Paranormal Love Wednesdays Blog Hop!
| 1. | C. Marie Bowen | 3. | Blaire Edens | 5. | Barb Caffrey |
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| 2. | Margo Bond Collins | 4. | Erin Hayes Books |
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Cover Reveal for Michael B. Caffrey’s “Columba and the Cat”
Folks, I’m very excited to announce that my late husband Michael B. Caffrey’s story “Columba and the Cat” is going to be coming back out independently very soon as an e-book via Amazon Kindle — within a week if all goes well.
And now, I have a cover!
Ta da!
I edited Michael’s story, and I know it’s good.
“But what’s it about, Barb?” you ask.
“Columba and the Cat” is about Princess Columba of Illinowa. She’s a magician, a scholar, and is currently the heir to the throne…and wants no part of it. Because she’s royalty, she’s had trouble meeting men, and she’s tired of dealing with people in search of a title rather than herself.
Into her life comes a mysterious cat. (Literally. The cat nearly gets run over while she’s out riding.) She rescues the cat, takes him into the palace, and starts having unusual dreams — dreams of a man who understands her, cares about her, and loves her.
Now, why did this happen after the cat showed up? Well, unbeknownst to Columba, the cat is a shapeshifter. He, too, is royal, albeit from far away. And he’s the man of her dreams…that is, when he’s not in the form of a cat.
Anyway, the dream-man shows up, and the cat disappears. Columba must decide whether or not to believe in magic, believe in the dreams — and hope that somehow, all of the magical romance she’s found is here to stay.
It’s a deeply romantic story with more than a little paranormal involvement. I definitely hope people will enjoy it, and am pleased to be able to finally bring it back out again.
There are three more stories in this universe. Two are written by Michael, while one is currently being written by me from Cat’s perspective (as in, why did he go in search of Columba in the first place?) Perhaps more can be written, later, if people show interest — I think my late husband would like that.
My plan is to have “Columba and the Cat” out as an e-book at Amazon in time for my thirteenth wedding anniversary on June 24, 2015. (I think Michael would approve.)
Before I go back to my editing (an intensive project, already in progress), here’s a banner display to check out as well, courtesy of artist Kathey from the Author’s Secret. (They have ready-made covers over there, too, and offer a wide array of services. Just sayin’.)
Barb Caffrey's Blog 
Commentary on Charleston, plus cover reveal for “To Survive the Maelstrom”
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Folks, I’d planned to do this cover reveal today for my forthcoming short story, “To Survive the Maelstrom,” before the events in Charleston last night.
Because this story deals with loss, grief, and a soldier with PTSD finding a way to continue on with his life, I decided to go through with it anyway. I plan to release this story sometime next week in time for my thirteenth wedding anniversary.
But before I do that, I’d like to comment a little on the Charleston shooting.
My heart is heavy. I don’t understand why anyone would sit through an hour’s worth of Bible study, then calmly and coldly shoot nine people to death.
I know that the man who’s been ID’ed as the shooter is a self-proclaimed racist. I know that he wanted to “kill black people,” and left one person alive to explain just why he did this. I also know the shooter is only twenty-one years old…because I don’t like talking about someone so evil, so twisted, and so bizarre, I’m not going to give this perpetrator the dignity of having a name. (I think he lost that when he took those nine people’s lives in cold blood.)
Anyway, while I cannot understand the shooting in Charleston at all — a church, of all places, should be safe, even in times like these — I do understand how it feels to live after grief. And overpowering grief is very difficult to bear.
This is why I wrote “To Survive the Maelstrom.”
Note that Michael, my late husband, is credited for two reasons. One, I’m playing in his Atlantean Union universe. And two, I found the story of how Peter, my hero, met his weremouse (an empathic, sentient creature), to be uplifting and inspiring — and Michael had the bare bones of it in one of his unfinished manuscripts.
The blurb for “To Survive the Maelstrom” will go something like this:
Into his life comes Grasshunter’s Cub, an empathic, sentient creature known to those on Heligoland as a “weremouse.” Grasshunter’s Cub is nearly adult, and knows he doesn’t fit in with the rest of the weremice in his tribe.
Weremice are known for their ability to help their bond-mates. But how can this young weremouse find a way to bring Peter back from the brink of despair and start living again?
Ultimately, “To Survive the Maelstrom” is a story of hope and faith, told in an unusual way. I hope readers of military science fiction will enjoy it.
I also hope that showing someone who’s lost everything and found a way to claw his way back will be inspirational, maybe even heartwarming.
Because we need stories like this right now.
Written by Barb Caffrey
June 18, 2015 at 7:30 pm
Posted in Michael B. Caffrey, milsf, Writing
Tagged with "To Survive the Maelstrom", Atlantean Union, Charleston shooting, commentary, cover reveal, grief, loss, military SF, milspec, PTSD