Marissa's Bookish Doings: Past, Present, and Future

First, some award news: I’m delighted to report that Evergreen won first place in the Young Adult category of the 2020 International Digital Awards, sponsored by Oklahoma Romance Writers of America. Between Silk and Sand won the same category back in 2018, incidentally.

In other award news, Evergreen is a finalist in the Paranormal category of the 2020 Golden Leaf Award, sponsored by New Jersey Romance Writers…and yes, other books of mine have been honored in this contest, including Skin Deep winning the Paranormal category in 2017 and both Betraying Season and Courtship and Curses being finalists in the Young Adult category.

I’ve discovered that I really enjoy making “book trailers”—teaser videos for books, much like movie trailers. Whether they’re much good is another issue. 😜 Still, it’s exciting, as an author, to find images that resonate with my vision of my stories…and after all, it’s just another form of storytelling. All of which is a roundabout way to get to showing you the video I created for an older book of mine, By Jove:

What do you think?

And finally, some future bookish news. Between a family bereavement at the beginning of the year and the weight of the present pandemic, my writing has slowed to a snail’s pace. But even snails eventually reach their destinations: in 2021, look for a new young adult book from me as well as a new story in the Leland Sisters world featuring Persy and Pen (and Charles!)…and a new venture: I’ll be co-editing an anthology of ghost stories for Book View Café, due out in September. Stay tuned!

Charles Bewitched is here!



It's here!

For all those readers of Bewitching Season who've asked me when Charles "Chuckles" Leland would get his own story, I am delighted to announce that Charles Bewitched is here!

First, the blurb:

They'll never believe him back at school when he tells them how he spent his summer vacation...

In this novella follow-up to Bewitching Season and Betraying Season, 16-year-old Charles Leland is not looking forward to his summer holidays from Eton--not when he has to spend them cramming history to make up for a less-than-stellar grade last term. Even the thought of staying with his sister Persy and her husband Lochinvar while his parents are in Ireland can't cheer him up.

But studying quickly takes a back seat to finding out what has happened to Persy, who disappears from home the day he arrives. All signs indicate that she's been kidnapped by gypsies. But a gypsy boy named Nando convinces Charles that her disappearance has a much more otherworldly explanation.

Now Charles must brave the perils and sheer strangeness of the fairy lands to save Persy from being forcibly married to a powerful fairy lord. With the help of the fairy lord's own younger (and alarmingly pretty) sister, a copy of History and Policy of the Norman and Angevin Kings that he's supposed to read before September, and Her Majesty Queen Victoria, he might just do it...but will he also be able to save himself?

This novella was fun to write...I mean, Charles! It was also a fun way to wrap up, at least for now, the Leland Sisters series. I'm not saying I'll never come back to it...but for now, my writing for young adults is moving in other directions (and centuries!)

Also interesting was the process of publishing this story--finding professional editors and cover designers, learning how to format files and eventually upload them--it's been an education! I'm particularly pleased with the cover designed by YA author and designer Lisa Amowitz; she was able to take the image of a modern young man (who is totally Charles as far as I'm concerned) and turn him into a lad from 1842, thanks to a clothing image graciously lent to me by Christina, proprietor of Elegant Ascots (www.elegantascots.com), whose shop I serendipitously found on Etsy!

So...where can you find Charles Bewitched? As a novella, it is only available in e-book form...but that means you can purchase it from the Amazon Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble's Nook Store, and Kobo, with the Apple iBookstore coming soon.  Any other places that you like to buy ebooks from? Let me know and I'll see if I can place it there.

I sincerely hope you'll have as much fun reading it as I did writing it! And now...I'm off to Atlanta!