Alice Duncan's Newsletter

February 2019

Mercy sakes, January’s over. That happened fast, didn’t it? The coming month will feature the eleventh birthday of my great-granddaughter, Kasumi. That happened fast, too. I remember visiting my grandson and his family shortly after Sumi’s birth, when they lived in Kansas. And now Sumi’s turning eleven. Worse, Andrew, her older brother, is going to be fourteen in May! Well, I don’t mean worse precisely, but I have almost-grown great-grandchildren, and that makes me feel old, which is only right since I am old. So I’m trying to remember my age in order to minimize falls, etc. I’m not used to being old, and I don’t like it. Too bad. So sad. Sigh.

But enough of that. SHAKEN SPIRITS was released in January, which made me happy. People seem to appreciate the addition of Lou Prophet to Daisy and her gang. Old Lou is extremely fun to write, so I hope Peter Brandvold (who created him and writes about Lou when he was in his salad days) lets me keep him. So please go out and buy several copies! You know. For gifts and stuff. Here’s the cover and the Kindle link:

Buy SHAKEN SPIRITS for your Kindle

 

Also, if you want to read about Lou Prophet when he was a young, vigorous, womanizing, hard-drinking bounty hunter and still had two legs, please go and buy several copies of BLOOD AT SUNDOWN, too. It’s a great read, in my not-very-humble opinion. Here’s the cover and Kindle link for BLOOD, too. Hmm. That title doesn’t shorten awfully well, does it? But it’s a good book!

Buy BLOOD AT SUNDOWN for your Kindle

 

 My Daisy publisher, ePublishing Works, has also set up a pre-order page on Amazon.com for SCARLET SPIRITS, the next Daisy book, which I just finished writing. Yay, me! Haven’t a clue what the cover will look like, but here’s the Kindle link if you have a burning desire to pre-order it:

Buy SCARLET SPIRITS for your Kindle



Two extremely good things regarding what I laughing call my writing career happened in January, although I’m afraid I’ll jinx myself if I write about them here. But what the heck. If I’m jinxed, I’m jinxed.

The first extremely good thing was that Five Star finally relinquished the rights to Daisy’s actual seventh adventure, SPIRITS REVIVED. Therefore, ePublishing Works (run by the fabulous Nina and Brian Paules) are going to reprint the whole series and number them correctly! That means the books will follow one another in a logical sequence, SPIRITS REVIVED will be #7, and the rest of the books will be numbered accordingly. I’m so happy about this I could squeal, but I don’t want to scare the dogs.

The second extremely good thing to happen is that a person who hates to be thanked for anything and whose name I won’t mention here (Peter Brandvold. Okay, so I lied) told me about a publisher called Wolfpack run by a fellow named Mike Bray. Mean Pete suggested I send an email to Mike Bray with “Mean Pete Sent Me” in the subject line. So I did and included a list of all the books I’ve written (around 60-something). Mike Bray got back to me and said he’s extremely interested in re-packaging and re-publishing my entire back-list (the ones to which I own the rights, I mean)!

Wow. It would be spectacularly nice to make some money on books I wrote way back when, and I’m super-excited about this possibility. Wolfpack will probably begin by re-publishing either the Pecos Valley historical cozy mystery series (beginning with PECOS VALLEY DIAMOND, and going on through PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL and PECOS VALLEY RAINBOW) and starring Annabelle Blue; or my post-Titanic-disaster series, featuring three women who survived the sinking of Titanic. The books in order are A PERFECT STRANGER, A PERFECT ROMANCE (my personal favorite), and A PERFECT WEDDING. All three books feature Loretta Linden, a fabulously wealthy San Francisco woman who is devoted to helping everyone around her, whether they want her help or not.

The bitter truth about the Titanic series is that I totally loathed writing the first book (A PERFECT WEDDING). That’s because I thought Daisy Gumm Majesty was dead and floating belly-up in the goldfish bowl of publishing, and I only wanted to write more Daisy books. I got over it and enjoyed writing the second and third books. It probably helped a whole lot that Daisy got a new lease on life, thanks to Five Star. And now ePublishing Works has done a totally fabulous job on the Daisy series. In fact (this is embarrassing to admit, but what the heck), ePW is the very first publisher I’ve ever had (and my books have been published by most of them) that has ever made any money for me. I love Nina and Brian!

Very well then, let’s get to the important stuff. The people who won copies of SHAKEN SPIRITS are: Meredith Hillenbrand, Tammy Corcoran (who lives in Minnesota, poor frozen thing), and Teena Stambaugh (who lives in Ohio. Not sure what the weather’s like there). I’ll get your books to you as soon as I can get to the post office, ladies.

As for books I’ll be giving away at the end of February, lemme think for a minute. Okay, I’ll give away a copy of PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL, a copy of FALLEN ANGELS and a copy of SIERRA RANSOM. SIERRA is an historical romance novel, but it’s pretty good anyway. Due to the high cost of postage, I’ll only be able to send physical books to people residing in the USA. However, if you live in a far-off place and win, I’ll be happy to send you an ebook (Kindle or Nook).

Iris Evans and Leon Fundenberger founded a Facebook page called DAISY DAZE just for posting stuff from the 1920s that Daisy Gumm Majesty and her family might have used or seen or gone to or shopped at. It’s fun, and if you’d like to be a member, check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/905100189878318/ .

If you’d like to visit my web page, here’s the link: http://aliceduncan.net/ . And if you’d like to be Facebook friends, please go here: https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925

I think that’s it! Thank you!