ALL MY E-BOOKS ARE 99 CENTS IN JUNE!

Oh, boy! It’s June, and all my e-books are on sale at Kindle and Smashwords for 99-cents each! Here are the links. Kindle: http://aliceduncan.net/page5.html and Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/aduncanzianet

Not only that, but I get to go to California, where I’m originally from. In California I’ll get to see all my old California buds, and I’ll also (and this is the most important part) get to attend my daughter Robin’s wedding to Gilbert Polozzi, which should be mega-fun. So what if I won’t be able to see yet? I can enjoy the pictures afterwards.

Speaking of not being able to see yet, most of the eye doctors in Roswell have given up performing cataract surgery (I learned the hard way that when you have surgery to correct a detached retina, you always get a cataract as you’re healing. It’s kind of a two-for-one deal). Ergo, I get to go to Albuquerque to have my cataract assessed (one trip) and then removed (another trip). 400 miles round trip. Overnight stay. I know my semi-cousin hates it when I say this, but Roswell is a STUPID place to live!

I also had an MRI in May, the results of which have prompted my doctor here in Roswell to get in touch with a neurosurgeon in (where else?) Albuquerque. With luck, the neurosurgeon will be able to scrape away the calcium deposits on my lumbar spine, stick spacers between the squashed discs, glue ‘em in there, and then put some sort of shield around the surgery spot so my spine doesn’t have the opportunity to crumble again. I’m not exactly looking forward to an operation on my spine, but if it works, I might possibly not be in constant pain any longer. Heck, I might even regain an inch or two of the three I’ve shrunk. I’m sure my muscles will protest, but to heck with them.

Naturally, this will also be a two-trip ordeal, one for the assessment and another for the surgery. After the surgery, God knows what will happen, but I suspect I’ll have to spend time in the rehab center here in Roswell (at least we have one of those), and two of my dogs will have to be looked after by others because I won’t be able to pick them up. Fortunately, Giblett, the heaviest (and cowardliest) of my wiener dogs comes complete with a handle. He has a genetic malformation that makes him walk like a duck, or Charlie Chaplin, so I keep a harness on him all the time for easy pick-up. Also fortunately, through my work with New Mexico Dachshund Rescue, I have someone willing to keep him during my ordeal. My darling, WONDERFUL neighbors, the Laskys, will take care of my other wieners until I can resume looking after them myself.

Gee, for a person who’d never had surgery in her life until last December, it looks as if by this coming December, I’ll have had three of ‘em. Getting old is so much fun. Not.

On the book front, FALLEN ANGELS is now available as an e-book on Kindle, Nook, Sony, or whatever other e-reader you have. And if you don’t have an e-reader and don’t mind reading books on your computer, you can download a free Kindle application from Amazon.com.

Also (this is the scary part), I aim to publish the next Mercy Allcutt book, ANGELS OF MERCY, by myself via CreateSpace. This is a total experiment. When the book is published, it will be available as a trade-size paperback and via Kindle, Nook, Sony and the rest of the e-publisher venues. This is both exciting and frightening. I mean, I’m no Nora Roberts with a ten-million-person fan base. I’m just little old me, who writes books some people like to read, but most folks have never heard of. This is the cover art the talented and overall wonderful Melissa Alvarez did for ANGELS OF MERCY:

Anyhow, please wish me luck on all fronts. Heck, you can even buy my books if you’re feeling particularly generous. And don't forget that every single one of my e-books will be on sale for NINETY-NINE CENTS EACH during the month of June! Wow, Whatta deal!

The Joys and Travails of April

Springtime in New Mexico, unlike springtime in other, more civilized parts of the world, is windy. Really, really, really windy, complete with dust storms and accompanying ickiness. Heck, I even wrote a book about the wind once (Cooking Up Trouble, available for a miserly $2.99 on Kindle and Smashwords). As we’re in the second year of a ghastly drought, this April’s winds have been particularly heinous. Parts of the state have also been overrun with moths. Go figure. If I were a moth, I wouldn’t want to live in a dry, windy state like ours. Heck, I’m a human, and I don’t much want to live here. Ah, well.

The month did bring a bit of magic, however, beginning with the simply smashing e-book cover for the third of my Mercy Allcutt books, Fallen Angels. Mercy Allcutt is a rebellious Boston Brahmin, who has come to the wicked city of Los Angeles, where her sister Chloe lives with her wealthy movie-mogul husband. Mercy has secured a job (gasps of horror echo from her mother in Boston) as secretary to private investigator, Ernie Templeton. In this outing, one Persephone Chalmers is foully done to death, and Ernie ends up the prime suspect. Mercy isn’t about to let Ernie burn (California used the electric chair in 1926, when the book is set) so she investigates on her own. Her investigations lead her many places, including the Angelica Gospel Hall, run by the charismatic Adelaide Burkhard Emmanuel. I shamelessly borrowed both the Hall and Sister Emmanuel from the Foursquare Church of God founded by Aimee Semple McPherson, in case anyone cares. Here’s the cover, created by the multi-talented Melissa Alvarez (www.bookcoversgalore.com):

You can now buy FALLEN ANGELS for your Kindle or your Nook or whatever else you want to read it on. 

Here's the link for Kindle: Click Here

Here's the link for Smashwords: Click Here

And then Bella the Pekinese came into my life. Of course, she never would have except that I’d been fretting about finding a suitable outfit to wear to my daughter Robin’s wedding in June. Trust me when I tell you Roswell, New Mexico, isn’t a shopping Mecca. Heck, it isn’t even a Meccette. Therefore, when I got word that a four-month-old Pekinese puppy needed to be picked up in Artesia (approximately 45 miles southish from Roswell) and then driven to Santa Fe (approximately 200 miles northish from Roswell), I thought to myself, “Santa Fe! They actually have stores in Santa Fe!”

So I picked up Bella in Artesia and took her to my house in Roswell. I worried that Giblett, my bully wiener dog, would try to murder her. Needn’t have spared the matter a thought. I guess Pekinese used to be guard dogs in Chinese temples, and Bella clearly takes her background seriously, because when Giblett growled at her, she took off after him, screaming doggie obscenities (I was shocked a dog her age knew so many of them), and scared him into my office and into his crate, from which he didn’t emerge for a full hour. When he did come out again, he tried to recoup his dignity, but Bella would have none of it, and they hollered at each other for what seemed like hours and hours. And hours. Lord. Bella had my entire herd trembling in its boots—or she would have, if they’d been wearing boots.

Anyhow, as much as I love Bella because she’s sweet and cuddly and as adorable as a puppy can be (except when faced with a Giblett), I wasn’t sorry when I loaded her in my car the following morning and drove the 200 miles to Santa Fe, where I dropped her off in the wonderful care of Marguerite Wood, who operates Santa Fe Small Dog Rescue. According to Marguerite when I checked on the 25^th of March, Bella is doing extremely well, gets along fine with the other dogs in her care (none of whom are bullies like Giblett) and will eventually be placed in an excellent home.

What’s more, I actually found an outfit to wear to Robin’s wedding in Santa Fe! Mind you, since my spine had squashed three whole inches from my frame, I’m not shaped like I used to be, and it’s difficult to find clothes that fit right, but I think this outfit will work. I’m not going to show it on this blog, because I loathe having my picture taken, but it’s pretty.

Whew! Overall, except for the weather and a few doggie growling matches, I do believe April contained more magic than mayhem, which makes for a pretty darned good month!

Whole Bunch of Stuff Relating to March

March roared in like the proverbial lion, a not-uncommon phenomenon in SE New Mexico. However, unlike more civilized parts of the country, we expect the weather to keep roaring up to and perhaps including summertime, more’s the pity. You see, spring is what we call our windy season, sort of like we laughingly call summertime our monsoon season. I’m sure folks in India and Pakistan would scoff. Heck, even we’re scoffing, since we don’t expect to get any more rain this year than we did last, which was approximately half our normal yearly boon of around thirteen inches. I know, I know, I live on a desert. But jeez Louise, we’re accustomed to SOME rain, even on our desert! Mayhem, indeed.

On a slightly less mayhemly note, I got some gorgeous covers for three of my e-books from Melissa Alvarez, who does masterful work and has a website at bookcoversgalore.com. These covers are for my three “Land of Enchantment” books (ENCHANTED CHRISTMAS, A GAMBLER’S MAGIC and A GAMBLER’S MAGIC) originally published by Dorchester (and am I ever glad they dumped me when they did! At least I got paid royalties for the books they published and got the rights back on my old Emma Craig books, which is more than many of authors can say since Dorchester went belly-up). Melissa gave them smashing covers, which you can see for yourselves. Here’s a handy link for all my e-books: http://aliceduncan.net/page5.html If I ever have any money again, I aim to get more covers from Melissa.

Speaking of which, the winners of February’s contest for SIERRA RANSOM (Penny Tuttle and Sandy Olubas) will receive copies of their book approximately when the winners of March’s contest for CACTUS FLOWER (Kimberly Maynard and Carole Price) will get theirs. You see, I couldn’t work for about two months because of the surgery I had to correct a detached retina. Then I worked like mad trying to catch up. Unfortunately, I work in publishing, writing and editing. I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you guys this, but publishing time and geological time are approximately equivalent, with publishing being the slightest bit slower than the latter. However, I finally got paid last week! Therefore, everybody’s books will be sent out next week. I’m so glad—both about being paid and about being able to fulfill my commitments. Finally.

As for the rest of the month, Heidi is holding her own! She’s finally eating consistently again and, while she’s still seems mighty skinny to me, she seems to be doing ever so much better than she was for a while there. Daisy is still blind and bumps into things, but she’s okay too. As for me, my left eye remains really blurry, but I see the local eye doc in May. Then he’ll tell me if I need to have the cataract removed (you always get a cataract after retinal surgery. Sort of a bonus, I guess) or merely need a new prescription. I’m hoping for the latter.

And then, in June, something truly magical will occur! My younger daughter Robin will marry her long-time beau Gilbert, and I get to house- and pet-sit while they honeymoon. This means I get to go to California and see all my friends and eat all the food that isn’t available in Roswell, which is . . . well . . . not exactly the center of the universe. Fortunately for me, my wonderful neighbors, Ann and Barry Lasky, will dog-sit for my pack while I’m pet-sitting for Robin’s and Gilbert’s much smaller pack.

So things are moving along. And a good thing, too! If you’d like to enter this month’s contest, during which I’ll be giving away two copies of PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL, a funny historical mystery set in Roswell (called Rosedale in the book), New Mexico, in 1923, please send your name and home address to me at alice@aliceduncan.net . This book was a finalist in the New Mexico Book of the Year Awards, although I’m not sure why.

You can see a photo of the lovely book cover for PVR and read the first chapter on my web site: www.aliceduncan.net  Thank you!

Review of February, a not so hot month, but not as bad as it might have been.

Oh, my, it’s already March. I don’t know why time flies so much faster the older I get, but it does.

As for February, it was a mixed bag. Both magic and mayhem reared their heads at different times. Probably the best thing that happened to me personally was that the blankety-blank gas bubble the eye surgeon placed in my left eye after reattaching the retina finally disappeared completely about two weeks ago. Yay! I still can’t see very well in the left eye, but that problem will be fixed eventually. Either the vision will resolve itself, my local eye doc will have to remove the cataract that formed there after the retinal surgery, or I’ll get new corrective lenses. Life can kind of be more pleasant slightly blurred sometimes anyhow, so I can live with fuzz in the meantime.

Then there’s Heidi, not such a happy story, but one that seems to be getting better. Heidi is a twelve-year-old dachshund, a black-and-tan piebald, and one of the core members of my erd. Heidi stopped eating all of a sudden while I was half-blind. When this went on for a week or so, I took her to the vet, where she weighed in at 8.5 pounds. This was a loss of more than three pounds! As she started out at 12 pounds, it was a catastrophic weight loss for my precious Heidi. She’s been to the vet’s office on and off all month long, and I finally picked her up yesterday after she’d spent five days at the vet’s office, being force-fed part of the time. But they finally found a food she will eat, and on the morning of February 29 she not only ate her breakfast, but she had THIRDS! Unfortunately, she’s back to not eating again. Sigh. We’re all hoping she’ll gain enough weight to be able to take heart meds, since she’s developed congestive heart failure. I just hate it when one of my wiener dogs gets sick! Please send strengthening thoughts for Heidi.

On the book front, not a whole lot is happening. I sold PECOS VALLEY RAINBOW, Book #3 in my Pecos Valley series, to Five Star, so come March of 2013 Annabelle Blue will be stumbling over more bodies in Rosedale (aka Roswell), New Mexico in 1923.

Other than that, my muse seems to be taking an extended leave of absence. I’m hoping s/he will return one day because I’d really like to write more books. My books might not make me any money, but they do give me a sense of satisfaction. Sigh. Any cures for missing muses gratefully accepted!