New Release: Witch & Wolf: The Complete Series (plus pics of the new kitten, Zazzle!)
Greetings, humans!
Princess here. Zazzle still isn’t up for trying her hand at helping control the magical glowy box yet, so I’m in charge for a while longer. (She’s starting to come out from under the sleepy place on her own, although I’m really not sure what I think about her asking for attention from my human female.)
As for the human female, she’s had a hard time lately, but she’s doing better. She’s (somewhat) back to work today, but she’s taking baby steps. It’s hard to write things to make people laugh when she’s trying hard not to cry. So, she finally got around to compiling the complete series collection for the Witch & Wolf series.
This is for those who want to read the core of the Witch & Wolf series. It’s priced at $9.99. If you were to buy the books individually, it would cost $20.95.
It contains the following stories:
- Inquisitor ($4.99)
- Winter Wolf ($4.99)
- Tales of the Winter Wolf, Vol. Six. ($0.99)
- Blood Diamond ($4.99)
- Silver Bullet ($4.99)
You can get your copy at Amazon and at Kobo. Other vendors will be coming soon, humans! (The human female has submitted them everywhere, but the holiday season is here, so it’s a little tough on getting new books published!)
I groomed her a little today. She looked like she needed a little bit of love. But only a little. She got too familiar with my human female, so she got a growl and hiss, too.
What? I can’t be nice all the time, and she was getting too familiar with my human female!
Training of the new Furred Manager has begun, but it’s not going quite well… mostly. Zazzle has a lot of training to do, but the human female managed to cajole her into helping with the business duties a little today.
As Zazzle is in dire need of training on how to be a proper member of the Furred & Finned Management, I took a moment to show her how it was done.
The next thing I will train Zazzle in is the art of Workus Interruptus. It’s a critical skill kittens must practice to perfection. Here is a picture of the first training session.
Now that the female has been properly subdued and her work interrupted, it’s time for a nap.
Later, humans!
Thank you, humans.
Princess here.
I’m still getting used to my sister being gone. The humans aren’t sure how to human any more, but they’re managing. Mostly. I, using my most cunning tricks, convinced them I would be sad and lonely all by myself.
As a part of saying goodbye to you most excellent humans, my sister wanted me to share the last picture our humans took of her. She wants you to remember her as the loving deity she was.
This last picture captures what she did best: loving people (and me!)
My sister’s journey is over until we cross the rainbow bridge to join her on the other side, but the end of her journey became the beginning of another journey.
The calico is named Zazzle, and she moved into our home today. The precious little black and white kitty was a strong contender, but… sometimes, the cat chooses the humans, and Zazzle refused to be deterred.
Her refusals involved digging her claws into his shoes and his jeans and rubbing her head anywhere she could reach.
The male human didn’t stand a chance.
While that’s the technical start of Zazzle’s story, it’s not quite that simple, humans. It never is.
It actually began several hours earlier with a conversation and a tiny bit of (loving) bullying from the female human.
This morning, the male human didn’t want to get out of bed at all. The female didn’t, either, but I needed breakfast, and my sister wasn’t there to help the humans get out of bed.
They were sad. They’re still sad.
But the female human, despite appearances, is a smart human. She asked the male human if he still wanted to go on a quest to Gondor. (He said no.)
She persisted, and she said he didn’t have to bring home a new friend, but he needed to go meet new friends, and they needed to have fur.
He was a sad human, but the female nudged, pressed, and finally hissed until he agreed to go meet some new furry friends.
Then the female human picked up my carrier because they’d been looking at Gondor, a rather large long-haired kitty.
Their quest to go to Gondor didn’t go well. The male human, on way to the door, said, “There is no way we are getting a cat today. We are going to look. We are only going to look.” There was something about not wanting to drive toooo far, too, and then something about picking a shelter where the fate of the kitties wasn’t quite as secured as Gondor’s. (Gondor is a customer service manager at a cat cafe.)
Here’s the takeaway: The male human was absolutely adamant there would be no kitties going home with him today. (Go ahead. Start laughing. The shelter people laughed and laughed and laughed, too. Female human giggled. Even the male human cracked a grin.
One journey had ended, but another had begun.
The humans arrive at the shelter, and they ask to see kitties, and they explained my sister had passed away over night, and that they needed to at least see some kitties.
So, they went into the shelter and started to meet kitties.
The first cat the male human met was named Smokey, and Smokey rubbed against the male’s legs.
Male lasted all of twenty seconds before announcing he wanted to take Smokey home.
The female’s expression? Priceless, humans. Priceless. Or so she told me. I believe her. Because the male totally surrendered in twenty whole seconds. The female informed the male that he needed to meet more kitties, especially the little calico that had been pouncing and playing with her cage mates.
The male agreed.
We found out right after meeting Smokey that he bullied other kitties, and that made the male sad. I’m not very good at standing up for myself, so I wouldn’t do well with Smokey. Smokey couldn’t go home with the humans no matter how much the male liked him. (Which was a lot.)
The shelter people then said which kitties were kind to other kitties, and they were escorted to the room with four kitties, two of which aren’t feeling well right now. My humans then explained to the shelter people that I had a mild case of the sniffles, so it was ideal for us to welcome a potentially sick kitty into our home because I’m already a little under the weather and there’s little difference between nursing one kitty as there is nursing two.
This made the shelter people happy, because not many people want to adopt potentially sick kittens.
Yes, keekee, you can has home with us!
Please admire my female’s shiny red shoe. Isn’t it cute? She wore her prettiest shoes trying to lure keekees to her.
It obviously didn’t work. All the keekees wanted the male human. (Obviously. They knew who needed the most love, and while the female has a very large cat-shaped hole in her soul, she was going to be okay. She has me! The male needed to be loved, too.)
Zazzle was the last of the kittens to come say hello, but she didn’t want him to leave and sulked when he went to the car. She didn’t realize, then, that he was on a quest to retrieve the carrier he absolutely swore would not be needed.
Yeah. That didn’t work out like the male was expecting at all.
Within half an hour or so, Zazzle was in the travel box and came home to meet me! I am very excited. I am very excited. The instant the female put the carrier down and opened it, I went inside and kissed my new sister’s home.
Then we realized something was strange and weird, and we both ran and hid under the bed together. I’m really not sure why the humans laughed so hard, but whatever. They’re laughing. That beats the leaking. (They reenacted Titanic in my living room, humans.)
Zazzle is now trying to come to terms with her entire life being turned upside down on her.
Zazzle will be okay. She just needs some time to adjust. In the meantime, I really, really want to meet my new sister and play with her! My new sister isn’t sure what she thinks about this, but I promise we’ll have a good time.
But for the next few days, Zazzle will be hiding in the bathroom. The humans gave her many of Tia’s old toys and her bed, and I think my sister would be proud of them.
In the near future, Zazzle will be helping with the newsletter and other fun things we have in mind! I’m excited. I wonder what her title will be?
I’m staying the Understudy, because that’s what I do best. But the world is Zazzle’s to rule, and I’ll be the same old Princess, ready to help her reign over the humans wise enough to worship us.
We’ll do our best to entertain you.
Tia the Majestic has crossed the rainbow bridge.
It was time. She was hurting, and she deserved only the best we could give her. We weren’t expecting it to be tonight, but tonight was the right time.
Yesterday, she could barely stand.
Today, she fell over several times trying to walk to her food bowl.
She enjoyed her favorite turkey this evening, and we showered her with love and stayed with her to the very end.
She was a good cat, and we will miss her dearly.
For now, Princess the Understudy will take over for her sister. There’ll be another cat one day, and probably sooner than we would like. Princess is very social and will need a friend. That won’t happen today. It probably won’t happen tomorrow.
It’ll happen when we can think about our wonderful, personality-packed best friend we escorted to a better place tonight.
Well, probably sooner than that. Princess will tell us when she needs a new friend.
In the meantime… Goodbye, Tia.
We loved your dearly, and we always will.
We already miss you.
Happy Holidays from the Furred & Finned Management!
No Kitten Around is on sale!
We of the Furred & Finned Management are pleased to announce that the human has priced No Kitten Around at $0.99 for the holidays. The price will stay at $0.99 until Cheetahs Never Win releases in early January!
Still looking for Christmas gifts? Hate your friends and family and want them to be tragically stuck reading weird, funny, and cray-cray books?
Give them the book as a gift. (Most book vendors have options to send e-books as gifts now!)
Haven’t read the book yet? Well… you could change that for ninety-nine of those copper pieces humans insist are currency!
(It’s not catnip, so we don’t get it, honestly.)
About the Book~
Warning: This novel contains excessive humor, action, excitement, adventure, magic, romance, and bodies. Proceed with caution.
The last thing Reed Matthews needs in his life is a kitten, but when an orphaned tabby suckers him into becoming her caretaker, he’s in for the ride of his life. Add in an angel determined to meddle in his affairs, a devil with an agenda, and a bucketful of bad omens, and he’ll count himself fortunate if he survives the clash between heaven, hell, and his ex.
In this anything goes romp, there’s no kitten around: if Reed wants to survive and regain control of his life, his only hope lies in the hands of an elf and his ex, a woman he’s sworn to never see again.
From Chapter One…
Had I been a wiser man, I would’ve just gone home after work instead of greeting the weekend in a bar. Had I been a better man, I wouldn’t have played the game, looking women in the eyes until I found one shallower than the average mud puddle. Had I been someone worth taking home, I wouldn’t have introduced myself to the blonde, a woman who’d never be pretty in the conventional sense. I had what she wanted, however. Her heart desired pleasure without permanency.
That I could do.
A twenty bought us drinks and her an opportunity to take me home with her. A few hours in her bed offered me what most couldn’t, a chance to look another person in the eyes without their heart’s deepest desire coming between us. Her contentment made it worth my while—almost.
I didn’t know the woman’s name, nor did I care to learn it. In the light of a false dawn, as soon as I was certain she slept, I crept out of her bed. As I always did when I stole away like a thief in the night, albeit an invited one, I tucked her in, kissed her cheek, and hoped she’d one day find something to give her heart more life, more spark, and the happiness she’d never find flitting from man to man because she feared the pain of failed commitment.
That, too, I had glimpsed when I’d first looked into her eyes. It rarely came across so clear; desires showed through the strongest for me. Locked deep in her heart, hidden behind a shield of pleasure, her fears festered. I wondered if she’d find someone who could heal that wound.
I wasn’t that someone. I had too many wounds of my own eating away at me from the inside and always would.
It took me almost an hour to walk back to the bar where I’d left my car, my hands shoved in my pockets, the image of a businessman who’d escaped the hardships of an office job like so many others. I’d left my hair disheveled on purpose to feed the impression I’d spent all my time drinking rather than pretending I enjoyed my night with a woman I could never love.
Everything went right to plan, up until I reached my car to discover a tiny tabby kitten had taken up residence on the hood. I supposed it had jumped from the low wall onto my vehicle, an old family car I’d bought from a destitute single mother because her heart had desired some way to provide for the children who’d never know their father.
I had paid twice as much as I should have for the piece of shit because she needed the money, spent a small fortune repairing it, giving it a paint job, and pretending I liked the damned thing.
The kitten stared me in the eyes and challenged me with a pleading meow.
Crossing my fingers, I took a defensive stance against the evils such a thing would bring into my life. I could barely take care of myself, the emotional equivalent of a train wreck.
A kitten was out of the question.
The kitten hadn’t gotten the memo I wasn’t interested in or prepared to take it home with me. It mewed at me again, its cry more insistent. I didn’t need my sight, cursed magic that it was, to tell me what the little beast wanted. It wanted milk.
Then it wanted to destroy the world, for that was what cats did when they weren’t sleeping. They plotted to take over the world before they destroyed it, crushing it in their little paws.
My cursed eyes didn’t tell me that was the kitten’s heart’s desire; animals didn’t trigger my magic, for which I was grateful. Making assumptions about the tiny animal’s intentions put me firmly in the ‘monster’ category, but I didn’t care. Something that small and fluffy had to be the purest of evils, plotting the demise of anyone who crossed its path.
It’d probably settle for enslaving me and forcing me to do its bidding if I gave it even half a chance.
The kitten rolled onto its back and stretched out its paws, its little eyes wide open, staring at me, imploring me, ignoring my ward, and mewling all the while. The evil little shit saw my weakness and latched on, securing its victory with its pleading cries. I scooped it up, and it barely fit in my hand, which proved the fatal blow.
I couldn’t just leave the damned thing to starve.
Cursing myself, I unlocked my car and slid behind the wheel, wondering what I would do with a kitten. As though sensing it had subdued me and made me its bitch, it quieted, further entrenching itself by nuzzling my hand, mouthing at me in search of the milk I couldn’t give it—not yet, at least.
Where the hell was I going to find milk suitable for a kitten? Setting the hell spawn on the passenger seat, I dug my phone out of my jacket and searched for a local vet. I found the number of an emergency clinic, sighing before giving them a call.
“ACC, Felicia speaking. How may I help you?”
“I found a young kitten. Any chance I can bring it in for an exam? It was alone.”
“The mother is probably nearby,” Felicia replied. “Have you checked for her or any other kittens?”
I took a long, careful look around. The bar skirted an industrial zone, and given an hour, the street would become a death trap for the tiny animal. “I found it in the parking lot near a bunch of warehouses and factories near a busy street. Haven’t seen any sign of a mother cat. It’s crying and seems hungry.”
“Any parks?”
“Only the concrete variety,” I muttered. “Can I bring it in or not?”
“It’s a hundred and fifty dollars for the vet to see the animal.”
Great. Not only was my newfound kitten out to destroy the world, it was out to murder my wallet, too. I could afford a hundred and fifty for the exam, but I wouldn’t like paying for a kitten I didn’t want to keep in the first place. “All right. That’s not a problem.”
The woman gave me directions to the clinic, which would add an extra thirty minutes to my drive home. I glared at the animal. Once certain I’d disconnected the call, I waggled my finger at the feline. “You are an asshole.”
The kitten slept, everything right in its furry little world.
Dear Keyboard,
Please begin autocorrecting 2018 to 2019 in the appropriate places.
No matter what the Finned and Furred Management and their (lacking) keyboard skills say, we have not actually acquired a time machine (yet.) As such, Cheetahs Never Win didn’t actually release in the January we have already survived. It comes out in the January we soo must attempt to survive.
The human is being ejected into space as we speak for not having acquired us a time machine.
You didn’t really need her for anything, did you?
P.S.: Go buy Claustrophobic. (You can get it here: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo)
…. humans can write from space, right?
Claustrophobic by Bernadette Franklin has released!
Happy Holidays, Everyone!
Dear humans,
My human is ill. The plague has come for her, and I have been ruling over her with an iron paw. So far, it appears she’s contracted a case of death, doom, and decomposition.
Wait, what? She’s still alive? Damn it, FOILED.
I’m not actually crying.
I just have dry eyes, and my evil human female put in my artificial tears, so I leaked a little. Really. It’s all good. And we won’t talk about my dirty nose, okay?
In other news, the human has plopped into her new contemporary romance adventure with glee. She also wrote the description while sick, so I expect I’ll have to break it to her eventually she needs to rewrite it when she’s no longer dying from the plague.
What? You want to know what the book is about? Okay, okay, geeze, humans… But seriously, you humans really need to know what the book is about? That seems unfair. I mean, okay, but you should just go buy the books anyway because then I get more treats.
Here you go. Really. Here’s the description:
Working as a mall elf is Chloe Mitchell’s worst nightmare, but when her best friend calls in a favor, she’s forced to face her Claustrophobia—of the Santa variety—head on.
Unbeknownst to her, Santa Claus has her in his sights, and he’s determined to make sure she finally has the happy holidays he believes she deserves.
This is where you click to buy the book.
Now, my sister has something to say to you humans… and it’s pretty funny. Okay, it’s a lot funny. The human didn’t find it funny, though. The human is silly, though.
Sophia Wants to Write a Book.
Princess here. While we aren’t really sure about Sophia’s species, we’re all in on this. It’s a book where parents sit with their kids and help Sophia write a story! I was skeptical at first, but then I decided to sink my teeth into this one, and while I found the book tasted oddly strange, I had a good time.
I’m still not sure why the human took my copy of the book away, but I left my (teeth)marks on it! Bwahahahaaa!
Now that I’ve done my job, it’s cold, my self-warming cat bed awaits, and I need to rest after viciously leaving my (teeth)marks on Sophia Wants to Write a Book.
Dear humans,
Tia here again. Please (somewhat) ignore my sister. She’s lost her furry mind. Before we go away and leave you to your happy holiday reading, we have a few things to give you!
#1: there’s this badass science fiction and fantasy book bundle up for grabs to one lucky winner. (This ends on December 14, 2018.)
#2: my human is doing a giveaway for a kindle oasis. You can join here. (It ends December 10 at midnight ESTish or something like that.)
Last but not least, Cheetahs Never Win releases on January 2, 2018. Please ignore any odd emails Amazon sent you. We have no idea why Amazon decided to get into my stash of catnip and go on a bender. (We have no control over Amazon’s odd ways.)
We hope you all have a super happy holidays, humans!
Upcoming Publication Schedule and other news from the human! (Plus an amusing rant.)
The Human is a bad, bad girl.
In the next week or two, the human will be releasing this book. Claustrophobic is the first contemporary rom com our human will be releasing. She’s always enjoyed contemporary rom coms, and she’s been working on a few, but after having so much fun with Blending In, she decided to go all in and do another one.
As a result, her schedule has shifted. Well, not all the schedule shifts have been due to randomly starting (and finishing) another holiday story.
Cheetahs Never Win needed another editorial pass, so it went off to a new editor, thus pushing its release date to early January.
Since December was pooched anyway, the human then decided she’d do a sale for No Kitten Around. (Watch out for that by the end of the month. It’s coming. $0.99 for a limited time. She’ll probably set the price back to $4.99 when Cheetahs Never Win launches–roughly.
That’s just how she rolls.
A Funny Thing Happened…
As I’m a cat, and I’m a bit of an asshole, too, I thought I’d take a few moments to share something about people.
My human? She’s a busy human. She works hard most days of the week writing books. (She will cut you if you get in the way of her writing time. She even has a little unicorn shirt that says so. (The unicorn has a shiv taped to its horn.))
So, as part of being a writer, she tries to meet new readers. Sometimes, she runs giveaways. Okay, she runs a lot of giveaways. She does them in group efforts, on Amazon, on her facebook page. All the damned time.
She likes giving presents to people.
But other humans?
Some sure can be sore losers. My human gets messages where people complain they didn’t win. Some losers complain they get added to newsletters (or, you know, willingly hit the follow author button to try to get a free prize.)
Uh, if you don’t want added, humans… stop entering giveaways. That’s all on you. We invite you to investigate the door. It’s that way.
(Seriously? Nobody has time for your temper tantrums. The human will either have me make fun of you or just delete your messages without a single fuck to give.)
So, to the ‘nice’ people who keep leaving comments or dropping messages, we are actually laughing at you.
Sorry. We are. You’re so upset you entered a contest and lost that you feel the need to have a temper tantrum? I mean, that’s Grade 3 behavior. We are totally going to laugh over that shit.
And then roll our eyes and delete the messages.
Here’s a good way to handle this situation:
Don’t enter any contest or giveaway.
If you do forget yourself and enter, unsubscribe or unfollow. Simple!
In the meantime, I’m going to go back to laughing.
Oh, the publishing schedule thing…
At current, the human is working on a bunch of books. (Surprise!) Claustrophobic will release sometime between December 11 and December 14. Ish. Time for the book to make it through vendors varies. (Apple will likely be last.) My human has decided to sell it for $2.99 because why not. (It’s technically a full-length novel, but it’s the holidays and she’s like whatever.) It had been meant to start its life as a fun romp of a novella, and as these things often do, it outgrew its britches somewhat.
I’m sure you’re so sad about that.
Storm Called is 9,488 words. The human is typing up two scenes a day before working on something else.
Burn, Baby, Burn is at 27 handwritten pages. Typing begins anywhere between 60 to 80 pages, to give you a general idea. That said, Burn, Baby, Burn is a dual-POV story, so it might end up being longer. Once the human gets to the end of the journal, she’ll start typing and write the conclusion of the book directly on the computer. (That’s normal for her.)
Pirate Magic is having a page a week written. The photograph of the project then goes in the facebook readers’ group. (Look for the Fantasy Worlds of R.J. Blain on facebook if you want to read along.) The human was originally going to type it up, but she’s been too busy. Sometimes, pages of Burn, Baby, Burn also shows up in the group. The readers’ group is really the best way to keep in touch with our poor, poor human.
Blood Bound has words. The human is even adding to those words. Her job, after I relinquish use of her keyboard again, is to read over those words and add some stuff to them. it was on the back burner for a bit, but is being worked on.
Another Bernadette Novel is also being worked on. The human is in the outline and giggling phase of this one. There’s been so much giggling. So much giggling. (Someone make the giggling stop. She keeps interrupting my naps.)
Steel Heart is being worked on. Promise. It even has a date in the human’s new 2019 planner. That means it’s marked in stone.
But there’s a catch… there’s always a catch.
Due to circumstances, which involve the poor human being tired, things will be changing. She really, really loves the Bernadette Franklin stories. So, for the foreseeable future, this is the order of her bookmakery:
- Claustrophobic (Bernadette Franklin)
- Storm Called (Susan Copperfield)
- Shammed (Bernadette Franklin)
- Blood Bound & Grave Humor (R.J. Blain) (Half-half working because of Grave Humor’s general May 16 deadline.)
- The Run Around (Bernadette Franklin)
- Burn, Baby, Burn & Steel Heart (R.J. Blain) (Half-Half because Burn, Baby, Burn should be ready for typing at this point in time, Steel Heart and the other Jesse Alexander novels are typed directly into the computer.)
- In a Bind (Bernadette Franklin)
Everything after will be very up in the air. The human no longer has access to preorders on Amazon as she needed to hire a new editor to go over Cheetahs Never Win again. It’ll be that way for a year. Sorry, humans. There’s no way around that, so she’ll release as books are ready.
With a little luck, things will go well and the loss of preorders won’t hurt the human too much. She’s worried. Publishing is a hard business, and preorders are a good way for readers to follow along and get the books when they see them, knowing the book is coming and when.
She was really distressed she had to push the release date back, but she wasn’t confident without the assistance of a second editor. So she got the second editor.
It is what it is.
What this does mean is that the human is pretty bitter about the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series right now. Cheetahs Never Win is a dark humor. Most of the books are to some degree. Blending In was sillier. Burn, Baby, Burn is just flat-out ridiculous. Grave Humor is a mix.
The human likes alternating styles of humor.
She doesn’t want to ride one horse in the humor department.
She writes because a story interests her. She hopes others will like it. But she’s never going to cater to one style of humor or one style of story. She will try new things. New things may not work well. They may work surprising well!
And sometimes, she just gets tired.
Right now, she’s tired.
So, we’ll see what happens with the Mag Rom Coms after Burn, Baby, Burn releases. She may just gamble on losing a lot of income and write on some other, untested projects for a while and try again on that series in 2020 or 2021.
(This is what happens when people bitch, moan, and complain. The author just won’t want to continue working on a series. The human is getting to that point on the Mag Rom Coms.)
It helps my human doesn’t read the reviews now, but she’s lost count of the number of times people have directly approached her with commentary, a lot negative, about how they just didn’t like something.
It’s a part of being a writer, but it gets damned tiring on the human.
Here’s hoping that a significant change of pace, in the form of Bernadette Franklin, helps.
You may have noticed the lack of links on this post. There’s a reason for that, and it generally involves the Furred & Finned Management just not up for being salesy today. We’re newsy today.
Go forth and read something fun, humans.
An Update on Tia the Majestic
Hey, folks.
RJ here. (The Furred & Finned Management are currently staging a protest due to a visit to the veterinarian. The finned part of the management has decided to stand in solidarity.)
I thought you’d like to know what was up with Her Most Royal and Furry Majesty. As expected, she has kidney disease and a problem with her thyroid. She has yet another new medication. Since that wasn’t enough of an issue, she also has a syndrome with one of her eyes. All in all, she gets a lot of medicines a day to make her a happy kitty, albeit we’re beyond the ‘healthy’ stage of things.
To add to the fun, she has cognitive dysfunction. We all get old, and well, she’s old! We’ve had her a long time, and she’s been a most excellent cat.
As her dedicated humans, our job now is to make her as comfy as possible for as long as possible.
And, you know, set up the altar, dig out the wallet, burn the cash, inhale the sweet, sweet smell of burning money… in other news, holy cats vets have gotten expeeeeennsssiiiiveee.
But Tia and Princess had a lovely visit with their new vet, and they were very well behaved. Princess attempted to meld with my stomach to escape the mean, mean vet giving her her yearly vaccinations. Tia sang the angry song of her people, informing them she really wished to rip their flesh from their bones.
She raised her paw once, claws retracted, and tried to push the vet’s hand away from her face. No, thank you, she said.
The funny part about this?
The vet’s comment: “This is not typical cat behavior.”
Well, yeah. I’d noticed. The looks the tech and the vet gave me when I got them both out and set them on the table and they were just chilling during the way were just priceless.
So, we’ll see how this round of medication goes. In good news, she dodged the eye surgery, as the issue healed on its own.
It’s the small things.
Blending In has released today, plus other news!
Blending In: A Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) released today!
A Tiny Teaser from Chapter One…
As always, when Chase Butler visited Price Financial Industry Solutions, I transformed into a twelve inch long chameleon, which made preparing the afternoon spreadsheets difficult at best. I gave it a week before I lost my job thanks to the CEO of our competitor visiting so often. Scrambling onto my desk, I nosed my trackpad closer to my keyboard. Come hell or high water, I’d finish my work on time.
To get my son the puppy he wanted for Christmas, I needed to keep my job. To keep my job, I needed to get my head out of my rear end and find every last one of Chase Butler’s faults so I’d stop my headlong tumble into unrequited love.
If I murdered Gavin, a week-long fling, a divine, and father of my child, would his curse break? How the heck was I supposed to find a man who could love me better than a frisky divine with bed-hopping tendencies when I turned into a blasted chameleon whenever a man I liked came too close?
Chase Butler needed to stop being a handsome, generous man who liked animals immediately if not sooner. Also, he needed to stop challenging my boss and coordinating competitive charity drives. If he gave up his goody-goody tendencies, maybe I’d be able to rein in my admiration.
As usual, my traitor heart refused to listen to me.
About the Book…
Thanks to a jealous divine, whenever Chase Butler comes anywhere near Miriah, she turns into a chameleon. While her hopes of having a happily ever with Mr. Right are dashed, she’s determined to have the next best thing: a perfect Christmas.
Finding a puppy for her son, dodging the unwanted attention of her divine fling of an ex, and keeping on top of a holiday charity drive for local pet shelters sure is complicated when prone to transforming into a twelve-inch lizard with a severe allergy to snowbanks.
Since blending in has gotten her nowhere fast, she’s going to have to pull out all the stops to get what she wants, even if it lands her on Santa’s naughty list.
Warning: This holiday story contains excessive humor, action, excitement, adventure, magic, romance, and bodies. Proceed with caution.
Available now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Apple!
Dear humans,
Tia here. Mostly. There are no kitty pictures today; I need to have a very minor eye surgery within a few weeks, so my fur is simply mussed and unacceptable for the glowy rectangle box. My sister is helping me type since well, I’ve been going blind for a while. That’s okay. I can still smell all the turkey, which my human female made yesterday.
She’s going to try to talk the male human into another turkey. Her first attempt has failed. I’m unsurprised.
She just really likes turkey. So do I. I got an entire plate of it just for me. And she gave it to me in larger chunks so I could growl at it and shake my head as I viciously murdered it for my consumption.
I won that delicious war.
So, I’m going to be brief today, but I promise I’ll be back with new pictures of my majesty within the next few weeks. The humans have me on some medications, I get special eye drops until my surgery, and things are going well. According to the humans, I could eat several horses a day and not be satisfied, and both are very happy I’m being a piggy!
(They just haven’t realized they will be getting a second turkey, and it will be mine. Just mine. They can’t have any of it.)
My human’s kickstarter for the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) hardcovers ends in a few days. If you want these, get in on it now! She will do 1 or 2 kickstarters a year for print or hardcover versions, and this is the only way outside of random giveaways she runs (usually on facebook) to get your paws on autographed copies.
You can check out the kickstarter here.
Now, for the bad news: Cheetahs Never Win will now release on January 2, 2019. If you’ve preordered, your preorder is still intact and you need to do nothing. My human just needed more time with the book, so she gave herself more time.
We of the Furred & Finned Management is sorry for the inconvenience, but we felt it was for the best.
Oh! I stole my human female’s turkey recipe. Here it is. It’s really simple.
What you need:
A Turkey. (Fresh or Frozen, this time, she used a fresh pre-brined turkey.) If frozen, you will have to adjust or thaw. My human totally does cook frozen turkeys, but it’s often an 8+ hour adventure requiring a great deal of patience. Not recommended if you’re not into experimentation.
Spices: Garlic Salt, powdered garlic, smoked paprika, marjoram, savory
Butter: 4 sticks
Olive Oil: 1-2 cups
Heart-Monitoring Tools: Likely required, may need to diet for several years following this.
Vegetables: Carrots, onions, potatoes, celery, volume according to pan size
Fruit: One Blood Orange, One Lemon (Use 2 of each if you have a larger bird.)
Meat popper doohickey to help you judge if done OR a thermometer.
Step One: Brine
This is what we call the “Brine Flood of 2018.” So, there she is, working in the kitchen with this big ass stock pot that fits this bird. She’s put some brine water. Brine water is salt, water, stirred together to add some flavoring to the turkey bird. In this case, my human used garlic salt, a BUNCH of powdered garlic, marjoram, and savory. So, you’re supposed to gingerly ease the turkey into the brine.
My human dropped it.
Oops.
So, howling and cursing commenced. Let me tell you? My human smelled delicious. My sister and I spent a rather amusing amount of time licking her following the Brine Flood of 2018.
So, she goes to get the turkey out. Guess what?
Dumbass human drops the turkey into the pot again.
Turkey: 2, Human: 0.
When you brine, leave it for a few hours. If it’s been pre-brined, use less salt or you’ll get a salty bird.
Step Two: Heat your oven.
My human prefers 325. Wait for your oven to ding!
Step Three: Decorate Your Turkey For Ovening
Dear humans, this is probably the best part! This is where you make the deliciousness happen!
Put your turkey in a high brimmed turkey pan. We used the one use kind made of shiny metal from the grocery store with handles. PUT IT ON A COOKIE SHEET. (This will make it MUCH easier to get out of the oven later.)
Cut vegetables, put vegetables around your turkey, excluding the onion. Go ahead and pack it in there.
Slice your onion, slice your lemon, slice your blood orange (or regular orange if your grocery store isn’t cool.) Insert 2 slices each of onion, blood orange, and lemon into the turkey’s cavity. Place remaining onion, blood orange, and lemon around the bird’s exterior on top of your veggies.
Spices: Begin with the garlic salt. Sprinkle over bird and veggies. Then add your smoked paprika. Give an even, light coating on everything. Marjoram and Savory to taste. My human adds an extra layer of garlic powder (lightly, even) over everything.
Next Comes the Butter: Take three sticks of your butter, slice it lengthwise, completely cover your bird first, then put one whole stick inside the bird’s cavity and the rest overtop your vegetables.
Once oven is heated, put the turkey (on its cookie sheet) into the oven. Don’t cover yet.
My human uses whatever rack puts the turkey 1-2 inches away from the top of the oven.
Insert into oven, set timer for 1 hour and 20 minutes. Turn on oven light, walk away.
When the timer dings, open oven, gingerly move rack out so you can access the bird. Take approximately a quarter cup of olive oil and drizzle it all over the top of your bird. It should, at this point in time, start having the skin go golden brown. Don’t panic.
Get aluminum foil and lightly tent over the turkey. (You can just drape it over and crinkle it over the edge of the pan. Use oven mitts.)
My human burned herself once doing this because she’s a dumb nut. I mean, I came up behind her, startled her, and she jerked her hand and hit the oven. Oops.
Totally not sorry. It was smelling wonderful.
Set timer for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Walk away.
When you come back, remove the foil, use 1/4 to 1/2 cup of olive oil over the turkey, recover.
Set timer for 30 minutes. Walk away.
At this point, you may start seeing juices appear in the bottom of the pan. Don’t baste yet.
Take a stick of butter, slice it into slices, and drape over your turkey. Cover as much as possible. Drape with foil.
Set timer for 30 minutes. Walk away.
At this point, you should have ALL the juices. Baste with a spoon or a baster. Whatever you have handy, just moisten the skin.
At this point, you are watching for the popper or temp monitor to tell you the turkey is done. Baste every 30 minutes until your bird is done.
Once the timer is done… take foil off, bake for 5-10 more minutes until your skin is crisp to the right level.
Take turkey out of oven, drool for 10 minutes while it cools and rests, then DEVOUR!
And that’s the story of how my human makes a turkey.
Have a happy holidays, folks!
Kickstarter for Hardcovers of the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series.
Dear humans,
Tia the Superly Majestic here. Today, I helped my human compose a super cool kickstarter for the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series. As the bold leader of the pack, I have decreed that humans can, at their whim, summon a catastrophe! Or, well, enslave the human female into doing artistic things for your enjoyment.
Okay, okay. Being serious a moment.
My human adores hardcover books. She always has. They’re expensive to make because it requires a lot of persnickety work for the cover design. After conferring with both of her artists for the series, she determined it’s possible to do it if she can wrangle together $2,000 on this super fancy kickstarter. $1,000, approximately, will go to the cover designers. The rest would be used to get hardcover copies of the books made and sent out to backers.
As far as kickstarters go, this one is pretty safe.
The books are already written, although Blending In is due back from the editor at any minute. It’ll be released before the kickstarter is finished.
The human’s pretty handy at Ingram Spark’s system, so it shouldn’t be too much of a fuss to get the books printed once she gets the designs from the artists.
The artists are on board with doing the hardcover designs.
There’s one tiny hiccup in needing a new cover for Serial Killer Princess, but the designer’s already working on it and it’ll be done sometime before this is all ready to ship.
This image mostly says it all. Magic. Mayhem. Murder. 10 Novels. One Hilarious Ride.
There are a bunch of different tiers, but you can get a virtual pat on the back and a purr from the Furred part of the Furred & Finned Management for one whole dollar. (That’s a bargain, dudes. I mean, a purr from me is obviously worth far more than a dollar.)
Other tiers include helping create a catastrophe, signed paperbacks, signed hardbacks, signed and numbered hardbacks, envelopes potentially filled with glitter, and the original handwritten journals containing Whatever for Hire. (Yeah. That one is expensive. It’s one of a kind and can’t be replaced.)
The stickers in the image? Might be in the envelopes trapped with glitter. Bwhahaahahahaaa.
What can I say? I’m a cat.
So, if you feel like tossing a few pennies in the tip jar or want your hands on some super fancy, hard-to-get books, here’s your chance. Click on this link and sell your soul to me!
I’m much better than the devil, and I’m hell of a lot cuter, too.