Schedule for Mind Crafter and The Eternal City

So, just wanted to drop a few schedule notes.

My next book, Mind Crafter, which is a conspiracy-driven fantasy tale, will b released on June 1st.

The sequel to The Emerald City, The Eternal City, will be released on August 31st.

Thanks for reading.

Wednesday Interview About The Emerald City

Jennifer Donohoe interviewed me about The Emerald City.

Please check it out at http://www.jenniferdonohoe.com/wordpress/2012/12/05/the-wednesday-evening-interview-6/.

Modern Wizardry - I'm interviewed by Helen Hanson

I was interviewed by Helen Hanson about The Emerald City, inspiration, and a mess of other stuff:

http://www.helenhanson.com/interviews/modern-wizard-j-a-beard-author-of-the-emerald-city/

A 100 dalton pile of free e-books (or thereabouts): Indie Giveaway Blog Hop (Everyone likes free stuff!)

A large assortment of book bloggers and indie authors have banded together this week for a large e-book giveaway:

So, just visit the various blogs and enter to win e-books . Fun, right? The sites marked are doing giveaways internationally. Entries about the various giveaways should be up by noon or so tomorrow (Eastern time, I believe). There are all sorts of types of ebooks being given away, so something for everybody.






I'm also participating in the giveaway. I'm giving away two copies of THE EMERALD CITY to random commenters. Just leave a valid e-mail address. I'll pick at midnight Saturday the 28th with the aid of random.org.

Page 77 of The Emerald City

My friend Cindy Borgne tagged me for the lucky 7 meme. The meme sounded fun (kind of variation on the Six Sentence Sunday I used to participate in), and so I decided to do it with THE EMERALD CITY.

The abbreviated version:

Go to Page 77
Copy down the next 7 lines.

These lines turned turned out to be the main character, angry teenager Gail, having a conversation with a teacher about how she's adjusting to her new school:


“I have it under control. A lot of time life sucks. It isn’t about hoping bad things never happen. It’s about learning to handle those bad things. Wait long enough, the wind will change. The only thing we can control is our reaction. What people hate today, maybe they love tomorrow.”

Glutton for Punishment (Blog Tour #2)

Overlapping my current blog tour, I started a second one. I'm already exhausted. I'm also frightened because this tour includes several book blogger reviewers taking a look at my book. Other than a snafu with the wrong version getting uploaded and some Smashwords weirdness (since corrected), early reader reviews have been good, but there's not a single author out there who doesn't sweat reviews. 

Anyway, for those of you following along at home here is the schedule. 

Also note that giveaways of my e-book are occurring at several of these stops, so if you want to win a free copy, stop on by. I'm guest blogging about all sorts of things.

March 2 - Guest Blogging & Giveaway at Books Are Cool 

March 5 - Interview & Giveaway at BK Walker Books Etc

March 7 - Guest Blogging with Cindy Vine 

March 9 - Guest Blogging & Giveaway at B'Tween Prose

March 13 - Review & Giveaway at Jaclyn's Musings

March 15 - Reviewed at Persephone's Winged Reviews 

March 17 - Interview at Brewster's Bookshelf 

March 19 - Guest Blogging at AZ Publishing Services

March 21 - Interviewed at Reviews & Interviews

March 23 - Reviewed at Words I Write Crazy

March 27 - Review & Giveaway at This Author's Life

Tomorrow, though, I return with some regularly scheduled historical blogging.

Also, though I'm probably not going to do the promotional blitzkrieg, I'm very close to having my Regency paranormal romance,  A WOMAN OF PROPER ACCOMPLISHMENTS ready for release. Woo hoo!

The Emerald City On Tour (But Not On Ice)

Today I began my first blog tour to promote THE EMERALD CITY. It was graciously organized by Julie Ann Dawson over at Positively Published.

Monday 2/27: Interview at 21st Century Author
I discuss my admiration for Rushdie and my struggles with too many ideas among other things.

Tuesday 2/28: Guest Blogging at Samantha Warren, "Fiction is Truth"
My defense of fiction.

Wednesday 2/29: Guest Blogging at Jerry Hanel's Blog, "Fairy Killer"
Why would a die-hard skeptic enjoy stories about magic and the supernatural so much?

Thursday 3/1: Guest Blogging at Fantastic Adventure, "Our World Versus Their World"
Contemporary/urban fantasy versus second world fantasy

Friday 3/2: Ten Random Facts at Bards and Sages Group
Ferrets and North Korea!

Inspiration from a Musical, Cover Controversies, and Interrogations from Cypriots and Martian Lovers

I'm zooming around the internet promoting THE EMERALD CITY. One of the more pleasant ways to do that is via interviews. Here's some I did in the last few days:

Over at Chrystalla Thoma's blog, I discuss, among other things, how a cover controversy over a book I didn't write made me decide to alter some aspects of my lead's background.

Over at Cindy Borgne's blog, I discuss, among other things, my favorite characters in the story and some of the underlying themes.

Please stop by and join the conversation.

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.