News from the Word Mine
House purchase accomplished. Furniture purchase accomplished. Now I am back to the word mine, hard at work on about four projects.
First Working Title: Finding the Briar Rose
Set in the Human Diaspora universe. The story of Dane and Aurora Avondale’s courtship; he wakes her up from a century of cryosleep. He’s kidnapped by Saurians (friendly-ish aliens who evolved from their version of dinosaurs). He prevents the kidnappers from killing her after she nearly fights them off.
It is a Sleeping Beauty trope, but it’s Sleeping Beauty done properly. She wakes up with this guy kissing her and punches him, as one does in the real world. Eventually, Aurora kills the evil fairy in dragon form Saurian queen to free Dane, then takes over as regent for the late queen’s offspring that he saved when they were eggs. Hey, the kids didn’t do anything wrong.
I’m having trouble with the middle bit, where they discover they have far more in common than not, and the irritation turns to attraction. Apparently stubborn people live in my subconscious.
Second Working Title: Beta Testing
Set in the Dozen Worlds universe. The story of how Beta Tanaka and Danae Childress re-establish contact with Earth while overcoming their own relationship problems (he’s a customer-relations ninja for the Hauptmann Group, flitting around the Dozen Worlds fixing things; she’s a stay-at-home Zonan art expert–which makes for a really long-distance relationship). Oh, and did I mention alien cephalopoids (evil squids) might be coming to kill them all? Still fighting with this story, so the plot’s a bit murky yet.
Third Working Title: A Married Woman
Set in Regency England. Michael and Elizabeth, Lord and Lady Danbury, are coming up on their tenth anniversary…he was “blackmailed” into a marriage of convenience by her seedy father right before he leaves to be a field surgeon on the Peninsula. They discover she wasn’t quite 12 (who makes 12 the age of consent?!?—England until 1875! Gah!) at the ceremony.
A lot of living has happened since that wedding—both his older brothers died four years ago and he’s now heir to the big title—and he’s fallen in love with her, but she’s not so sure about trying the vows again. I never planned to write even one historical, but this is the second set of characters that refuse to get out of my head, so I’m writing it. FYI, Michael shows up at the end of A Ruined Woman as the physician for the duel.
Fourth Working Title: Temptation of Tetsuo or The Hitsugaya Harridan
Set in the Dozen Worlds universe. If you’ve read The Nobinata Gambit, you know a bit about Tetsuo Nobinata and Yuki Hitsugaya. This is their courtship—alpha male imperial warlord and alpha female survivor of sexual violence. And I’m still plotting it so that’s about all I know right now, but I do know that her strength and resilience is one of the things he finds highly attractive.
I also know Tetsuo is a great fighter but not so smooth with the ladies, and his awkwardness, and to some extent vulnerability, is something she finds attractive about him.
I’ll try to surface about once a week and think of something interesting to type, but…yeah. Those are pretty much the rest of my year if I can keep from getting distracted again. Wish me luck. And let me know if you come up with better titles, because I struggle with them.
Thank you – I love the update, and look forward to all the books!
I am taking you up on your suggestion:
Isn’t the Saurian Queen in the same universe as Nobinata etc.? I thought her daughter was the heroine of the Ocasek Opportunity?
I really like your titles in that Universe, so I guess I would go with the Avondale Assassination, or Avondale Rescue, or even Avondale Sword (cheesy…) , or any such name combo last name with a noun – if the defining action is the kidnapping, or the education of those Eggs, .. might the Avondale Clutch work?
And for the last one, I would not go with Temptation or Harridan, both are much too Historical Romance, cutesy to me. Not for that universe. Wasn’t the lady a Historian? why not the HItsugaya Historian? it does not have to be alliterative, does it? Then maybe whatever the main hook in your book is – like gambit or opportunity for the other ones – the Hi’ Dare? Hi’ Thaw?
Yes, the first one on the list is the “origin story” for Ekaterina Avondale’s parents. I like your title ideas–so much better than mine! I have no idea where the alliteration came from, it started with Ocasek Opportunity (which made sense) and then I couldn’t stop.
I like the title for the Regency, works with its predecessor.
Also Beta Testing, it sounds fitting in that Universe, goes with the other titles well
By the way: I found no other way of posting my problems with the Unique Solution on amazon. I would have much preferred to write to you directly. But only figured out today how I can do it a bit less publicly than amazon. I do not even know whether you read your reviews there…
Did you have a chance to fix the Unique Solutions editing? there were some double scenes and crossovers in the last third that I suspect were different versions that did not get ironed out – or maybe you took the version before last and not the very last version when you uploaded?
If you had a chance to fix it, I would immediately want to update my review, to honor the fixing and support your good work. If it was actually meant to be those confusing multiple threads, or if fixing is too hard, then that is that, I will still want to read any new book your write.
Wish you luck with all your endeavors!
Thank you for saying something! I had edited and read it sooo many times by last July (Talyn was just a jagged little pill of a character) that I think I mentally skipped over the repetitions–when I went back to see what you were talking about, it jumped right out and I got it fixed. You can always contact me here or email me at my gmail address, valmroberts.
I’m so glad you enjoy my stories–I’ll try to write faster so you don’t have to wait nine years for the DW novel.