A Genocidal Cult, A Capricious Empress, and a Naive Magical Scholar: Mind Crafter

To be a crafter is to control the essences of the world. To be a crafter of House Lran is to control the very essence of being, the mind. Feared by others for their ability to read and alter minds, the Lrani are known across the Larangian Empire for both their powers and mental discipline.

Shala, a talented young Lrani scholar, is obsessed with her research and has little concern for the mundane banalities of the outside world. A chance trip to a market rips the woman out of her isolated life after she chooses to use her crafting to stop a massacre. When the eccentric Empress Tua Van orders Shala to investigate the involvement of the mysterious Cult of the Cleansing Gods, the scholar doesn't know if she’s looking into a centuries-old conspiracy or just the paranoid delusions of an unstable woman.

With an unpredictable empress, suspicious palace officials, and strange nightmares all wearing her down, Shala is determined to find the truth before she ends up disgraced or killed.

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Mind Crafter is now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords.

It will soon also be available at Apple/iBookStore and Sony.

Look, I released a book!

Followers of my blog might have noticed I was a bit quiet last week. I spent last week finalizing the release of my young adult urban fantasy, The Emerald City:

THE EMERALD CITY
Young Adult Urban Fantasy

In this loose re-imagining of the Wizard of Oz, Kansas teen Gail Dorjee has tried to escape from the pain of her parents' death by retreating into a hard shell of anger and sarcasm.

When her aunt and uncle ship her off to an elite Seattle boarding school, Osland Academy, she spends her first day making enemies, including the school's most powerful clique, the Winged, and their leader, the ruthless Diana.

Social war and the school's uptight teachers are only mild annoyances. Mysterious phone outages, bizarre behavioral blocks, and strange incidents suggest Osland is focused on something much more sinister than education.


Gail has to survive at Osland with a pretty pathetic assortment of potential allies: her airhead roommate, a cowardly victim of the Winged, and Diana's cold, but handsome, boyfriend, Nick.

The Emerald City is currently available in ebook format at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. I hope to have it available soon at other outlets.

Just so you know, I have several other novels that will be coming out over the next few months. I've done a lot of writing in the last few years, but the editing, proofreading, and all that takes time.

At the end of February, I'll be releasing a sweet Regency paranormal romance, A Woman of Proper Accomplishments. No bodices are ripped. That may make you more or less likely to want to read it depending on what you want out of your romance.


At the end of March, I'll be releasing a fantasy novel, Mind Crafter.


For those who are fans of my Heian entries, please note that this autumn, I'll be releasing a non-fantasy thriller set during the Heian era.

With that release handled, I'll be returning to my regularly scheduled themed content this week along with some nice author interviews.

Coming Soon: A Tibetan in Oz and the Regency with a touch of magic

In my zeal for my research involving my historical products, it's sometimes lost that I'm working on other projects. Two of these writing products are coming to fruition (i.e., on the final stages of editing and proofreading). Now that I have the cover for one, it's starting to hit me that I'll be releasing books soon. Let the panic begin! It's all well and good when you're in the self-flagellation of writing-self-editing-beta reading-editing-rewriting and all that, but actually sending your precious baby to the harsh world of the general public is a bit unsettling.

At the end of January, I'll be releasing a book that I've previously discussed on my blog, The Emerald City. The story is a somewhat loose and modern young adult urban fantasy reinterpretation of The Wizard of Oz centered around a Tibetan-American teen from Kansas who ends up at a more than a little strange boarding school in Seattle.

It's actually a bit surprising, when I think about it, that my first release is going to be a young adult urban fantasy. Although I read plenty of young adult books, I never had any intention, when I began writing, of producing young adult work. Mostly, I intended to produce work in my favorite genres: historical fiction (as one might have surmised by my main blog content), historical fiction with magical elements, and adult fantasy.

I happen to really enjoy musical theater, though. In the course of satisfying that particular interest, I had the opportunity to see Wicked. So, I ended up inspired to write a reinterpretation based on another reinterpretation. The Emerald City will be out at the end of January. This book also benefited from being written after I'd written several other manuscripts. The old saying is that it takes a million words before you produce something worth reading. In my case, that's pretty much true.

The finishing proofreading and editorial touches are also being put on my sweet Regency paranormal romance, A Woman of Proper Accomplishments. Alas, I don't have my cover yet for that one. It was fun, but also a bit challenging, producing a Regency story where a type of reliable supernatural ability exists that still preserved the social atmosphere of the Regency period that interest readers. I think I succeeded (at least some of my beta readers claim I did), but I suppose the general reading public will have to decide here come February.

While I'm on the subject, I have an adult fantasy project, Mind Crafter, coming down the pipe, but it is still in first phase of editing.

Of course, I have a wonderful (I hope) Heian mystery coming out, hopefully, in fall of 2012.

The Emerald City

THE EMERALD CITY
Young Adult Urban Fantasy


When her parents die, teenager Gail Dorjee retreats into an angry, sarcastic shell. She hopes it will ease her pain, but all it gets her is a one-way trip from Kansas to a Seattle boarding school, the elite Osland Academy.

As soon as she arrives, Gail clashes with Diana, the leader of the school's most powerful clique. The Winged make Gail's life hell until she find allies: her airhead roommate; a cowardly fellow victim of the Winged; and, bit by bit, Diana's boyfriend--the seemingly heartless Nick.

Gail soon has bigger problems than Diana. One of her teachers hates her. Glasses shatter and fountains erupt around her. She can't swear no matter how hard she tries. An unseen force is keeping her on campus. And worst of all, she uncovers a plot that will give one person a precious gift at the cost of thousands of lives. Now Gail and her friends must stop the plot--not just to save lives, but to win a brain, the nerve, a heart and a home in this modern urban fantasy take on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

THE EMERALD CITY is currently available in ebook format at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, iBooks/iTunes, and Smashwords.