Don’t forget — Novella Promos Start #Today!

As promised, folks, I have two novellas that are on discounted promotions starting today (I think at eight a.m. Pacific Daylight Time — don’t ask me why Kindle did this, ’cause I really don’t know) and ending on Monday morning at roughly the same time.

So for the next five days, you can get my novella “To Survive the Maelstrom” for just ninety-nine cents, and you can get my late husband Michael’s novella “A Dark and Stormy Night” for free.

(Yes, I said “free.”)

A quick check shows that “Dark and Stormy” is already available for free. But “Maelstrom” is still listing at $2.99 — since I did both at the same time, I find this bizarre. But hopefully within an hour, this will have corrected itself…

“But Barb,” you ask, “both of your names are on both stories. What’s going on there?”

Ah, you must be new to my blog.

But to answer this question: “A Dark and Stormy Night” was written by my late husband Michael before he died. I added about 1500 words to it to make it a legal collaboration, and sold it in 2007 to an online magazine (which was not archived). I sold it again to the now-defunct E-Quill Publishing in 2010, withdrew it from E-Quill in early 2012, and offered it again in 2013 independently as an e-book via Amazon Kindle. (Thus why I’m credited second, and also why I took an editing credit there.)

And before you ask again, I wrote “To Survive the Maelstrom” based off 2000 words of Michael’s about how Peter met his weremouse companion. But I knew there had to be more to that story, so I decided I had to write the story for myself. It is a true posthumous collaboration, but I wrote over three-quarters of the story, which is why I’m credited first.

Both are military science fiction stories, of a sort.

I say “of a sort” because “Dark and Stormy” deals with Ensign Joey Maverick’s “low-tech” sailing adventures while on leave before he ships out for space. (His low-tech sailing equals roughly late 20th Century or early 21st Century tech. So if you love sailing, you will not be thrown by anything in this novel despite it being a futuristic piece.) And “Maelstrom” deals with space marine Peter Welmsley’s struggles with PTSD after losing nearly everyone he cared about during the battle of Hunin, including his fiancée and best friend. (Peter does meet up with his weremouse companion, as Michael had envisioned, though I changed a few of the steps to get there.)

Anyway, I truly hope you will enjoy these stories! (Come back and let me know, OK?)