Out, To Be Out And Upcoming

(Those of you looking for the Saturday Austen Fanfic, it’s posted in the post below.  I’m top-posting with an echo of my post at Mad Genius Club today, since this is something that ALL of you OFTEN ask me about.)  Considering the queries hitting my site every other Monday and twice on Sunday, I’m guessing people are getting impatient for my stuff.  I’m getting impatient for my stuff.  This was the first year in… five? that nothing came out.  No, it’s nothing serious just the unfortunate conjunction of the fact that two years ago I hit a wall, after years of pushing to deliver three to four books on schedule, and wrote only one book and that on spec, and that all the publishing houses seem to run slower than normal.  So, for those of you who would like to know what the state of the State (or the state of the Sarah) is, and given the way that I haven’t got around to fixing my stoopid website, here goes nothing:

First, I’ve started putting my back log short stories out with Goldport Press (you, at the back stop giggling.  Yes, Goldport is my made up Colorado Town.  Live with it.  I figure the press owns the Weekly Enquirer which is, in fact, the daily newspaper.)  There are 16 of them for 99 cents a piece on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smash Words.   I know that 99c is nowadays the established price for a short story or a single song, but it still seems weird to me, so if you can stand to take some stories you might have seen or don’t like as much, I’m putting these out in collections.  Look for Five From Far And Weird and Five Far Futures.  Today I hope to put up Five Unlikely Foretellings, but it might be tomorrow because… well, see at bottom.  Anyway, these are 2.99, so it’s like getting two shorts for free.  Needless to say none of these are DRMed.  The links above go to Amazon, but you can find the same thing in Smashwords and Pubit.

I also have some short stories out with Naked Reader Press and I am way overdue doing the final edit on a short story set in the world of the Vampire Musketeers called First Blood.  It will go in a collection with Kate Paulk and Amanda Green called Sisters In Blood, which will be out next month, just in time for… Christmas?  Whatevers.  The collection will also contain a short story with Kate’s SF-addicted vampire and one with Amanda’s shifter-cop from Nocturnal Origins.  I’ve tried to convince the editorial board that really, really, really, we need three pictures of us aged about ten and photoshoped onto some Victorian scene, but it’s been born upon me that I’m the only one who looked like a vampire child.  (Eh.)

Also out with Naked Reader is A Touch of Night with Sofie Skapski.  Among the things I’m really late editing is A Flaw In Her Magic, not a sequel, but also set in the world of Magical British Empire, if Jane Austen had written in it.  A Touch of Night is Pride, Prejudice, Dragons and werewolves, and A Flaw In Her Magic is Mansfield Park, foretelling, magic, weredragons and werewolves.  I’m hoping to get to it (more explanation at the bottom) so it can also come out in time for Christmas.

Okay, now more traditional publishers.  As most of you know, I’ve delivered A Fatal Stain, the sequel to A French Polished Murder in February.  I’ve been informed it’s scheduled for October 12 — this is what I mean about elongated publishing schedules.  Normally this would have been out this fall, but never mind.  Meanwhile, because I know there are people out there dying for it, but  unfortunately, I can’t do an end run around the house and bring out the fourth before they bring out the third (publishing houses have this nasty habit of putting an option clause for the next book in the series in the contract.  Until they reject the fourth book, or I reject their offer for it — and I haven’t submitted the proposal yet, though it’s in the works) I can’t work in that series.

So, Naked Reader Press will be bringing out, around February/March, depending on my schedule, the first Orphan Kitten mystery by Elise Hyatt.  A math Professor at Colorado University Goldport (the infamous Cug) will move next door to Ben and Nick’s new house (chill),  two doors up from Dyce, Cas and E (chill again!) with his wife and two teen kids, of which the younger is a mathematical genius.  Let’s just say my kids might kill me for this book…  Anyway, the wife wants to be a mystery writer, but gets involved in kitten rescue, when someone drops a bag full of newborn kittens in her yard.  This will be called Deadly Paws. 

Next in order of how many fan mails I get a week is Darkship Thieves.  Here, the problem is entirely mine.  I let the house publishing my mysteries get so under my skin that I delivered Darkship Renegade shamefully late.  I’m hoping Toni can still schedule it for next year, but we’ll see, since I’m about to change the ending a bit.  Hopefully she hasn’t got to it yet.  To compensate, because I wuv you guys (okay, fine, because that’s how it came out) I’m doing A Few Good Men, book one of the Earth Revolution which will go to betas today and to Toni, G-d willing, early December.

Baen has also bought book three of the Shifter series.  For those non initiated book one and two are here  Look for my name or for Draw One In The Dark or Gentleman Takes A Chance.  The third book will be Noah’s Boy and it is the book currently between hands, save for explanation at end of this page.

Also coming out next year, also in October, (wait till you see that Darkship Renegades is scheduled for October.  I hope you guys save your money for that fatal month) from Prime Books  is the first book of the Vampire Musketeers, Sword And Blood.  It’s coming out under Sarah Marques, and it now has a cover:

If you want to read sample chapters, they’re here, but be aware they’re strong meat in the realm of sex and violence, compared to most of my stuff.  (Though A Few Good Men has the highest bodycount of named characters of a book of mine so far.  Eh.)

So, Sarah, a few of you, the brave, the insane, the ones who email me every other day, are asking “What about the Musketeer Mysteries?  Didn’t you promise us Musketeer’s Confessor?”  Indeed I did, but here’s the thing: the house is doing its best to ignore the fact that books two through five are out of contract.  I’m going to try to get a cease and desist letter from an IP atorney before Christmas and hopefully get the rights to those back by the beginning of the year.  I’ve already talked to Naked Reader Press, and they want them.  So, the plan is to get the rights back and then publish these one a month starting June next year, then publish The Musketeer’s Confessor at the end of the sequence and then continue from there.  The reason for the delay in publishing is that I’m unlikely to get all the rights back instantly.  Often takes months.  Even if it doesn’t, I need time to revise and edit, because these books suffered badly from my stress in working with the house.  Also, we’re going to restore the title, so A Death In Gascony will be The Musketeer’s Inheritance and Dying By The Sword will be The Musketeer’s Servant (with subtitles saying “formerly published as”.)  So, wish me luck with that fight.

Other parked stuff…  The Magical British Empire is not likely to revert any time soon.  Since it’s a self-contained trilogy, anyway, it’s not bugging me too much.  I am going to continue writing in the universe, and Witchfinder, the book I’m posting for free on my blog every Friday is in that universe, though a different world.

And for the die hards that want more Shakespeare series — we might get to that in the fullness of time.  I have two more books planned in the series, but it would require a space of time to do it, like, six months, to get into the lingo.

OTOH since I’ll be finishing and bringing out the (Christopher) Marlowe Mysteries with Goldport Press, perhaps they can piggy back one on the other.

Anyway, as you see, I have a full schedule ahead for the coming year and if you feel a TERRIBLE need to know what I was talking about when I said “more on that later” — there’s this horrible habit I used to have as a young writer of hitting the chapter before last and just wanting to make it ALL right for the characters.  I think it takes loving characters very much for this to happen.  Dan used to read my books and go “Right, now take that outline you used for a last chapter, and write the hundred pages.”  I seem to love the characters for the space operas very much.  I did this with both Darkship Renegades and A Few Good Men, so today is devoted to finishing fixing that (rolls eyes.)  AND THEN I can move on with Noah’s boy.

This, ladies, gentlemen and dragons has been a relatively short and hopefully clear summation of the state of the Sarah.  Feel Free to ask about anything I didn’t mention!