Goodbye 2023, Hello 2024!

So I swore that for 2023, I would get my "year in review" post done by the end of December...and then it didn't happen. Oops. Sorry. But, to be fair, a LOT happened and even more new and exciting things are in the works for 2024!

First, the recap:

2023 was the year of eight books. It was fun and I'm so happy the Searching the Skies series is complete and out there for the world to see...but I'm not sure if I ever want to do that again. I also finished and released Sonata for Springtime, which was an achievement considering how long the first third of that manuscript sat on the time-out shelf, along with two spicy novellas, Train Hard, Rest Harder and Tangled In His Possession.

2023 also brought about a new logo and an Etsy shop for physical products (focusing on personalized signed paperbacks, but there are some stickers and bookmarks in there too!). 

A lot of what I started working on in 2023 was in preparation for my big plans for 2024. In no particular order:

The rerelease of The Edge of the Sphere is now available for pre-order! This is the last of my earlier books where the rights reverted back to me when the publisher shut down. Obviously it has some gorgeous new cover art, and I edited the hell out of it to bring it up to my current standards. Part of me can't believe I wrote this book twelve -- yes, twelve -- years ago, but I still love the characters and their story. Paperback, Kindle, and Kindle Unlimited will be available on January 19th!

Next, people keep asking me about audiobooks, and I've finally decided this is the year. At some point, I'd love to have the majority of my publications where I own the publishing rights available in audiobook, but since this is a brand new adventure for me, I'm trying to take things slow. (But let's just say one may already be in the works...)

Lastly, remember the logo rebrand and the physical merchandise I mentioned? Much of that is due to me booking my first in-person appearances at signings and conventions, starting this year. As of right this second, I'm booked for two in 2024 and two in 2025, but I have some applications and feelers out for a few more. I'll post a schedule soon!

Here's to a happy and productive 2024! Cheers!

Write, Write, Write Some More...and then Keep Writing

This past Wednesday was the 11-year anniversary of this blog/site, which is kind of crazy to think about. I definitely had no idea what I was doing back then (not that I have much of a better idea now), and while there have been times when I was only posting here sporadically, I do love having this record of my writing journey. I've met so many great people along the way, which I'm thankful for, but these anniversaries also remind me how some of my fellow writers who I respected and admired decided this wasn't for them and decided to leave writing with the goal of publication behind. It's tough. It really is.

Despite me doing this for over a decade now (which, like I said: CRAZY), I wouldn't say I started gaining much traction until about late 2019 or so. That was when I started reaching my pre-childrearing levels of momentum and had a slightly better idea of how to market my books to readers who were looking for the specific genres I was writing in. In a weird way, I think the lockdown of 2020 helped a bit, as people were reading more and I also had the time to dedicate to building more of an online presence. (Okay, Twitter. I'm talking about Twitter.)

After all this time, I'm finally coming to terms with something I've known deep down for many years: to be more successful, I have to produce more. Now, we can have the "quality vs. quantity" argument until we're blue in the face, but while my backlog is pretty big at this point, I know I need to write and release faster to keep building my audience. Part of finally accepting this is how, at this stage in my life, I WANT to do it. Some of my hobbies have fallen by the wayside (I haven't watched much TV or even touched my knitting in well over a year now), but writing is becoming my priority in my down time and I'm okay with it.

I don't have a firm release schedule for the rest of the year yet, but I have a lot—a LOT—planned. It's almost to the point where I'm so excited, I'm getting impatient and I have to resist the urge to publish a lot of books and stories all at once, but I've been doing this long enough that I can make myself be methodical about it. As always, make sure you're subscribed to my newsletter and following me on social media for the latest details!

Even More Disintegration News/Updates

Firstly, while I have your attention, go vote for Disintegration over at Cover Wars! I know I'm biased, but really, there aren't enough words for how much I LOVE this cover.

Okay, now that that's out of the way...actually, there isn't a ton to report from my writing world that hasn't already been covered. Just the other day on Twitter I was lamenting how time-consuming marketing is. I've said it for years: writing the damn book is not the hard part, getting people to read it is the hard part. I feel like I've just been going nonstop lately, to the point where I haven't written a whole lot of new words in other projects.

But! While I'm not a world-famous bestseller (yet?), at least I can say I'm getting some results. People are, in fact, reading what I'm writing, reviews are trickling in, and my sneaky ploy to include the pre-order link to The Fall of the Midnight Scorpions at the end of Disintegration is also paying off. And speaking of TFotMS, in case you haven't seen that spectacular cover yet, take a look!

So, I'm still plugging away at...well, everything. Marketing my existing books, writing the new ones, keeping up with the day job, and being present for my family. Outside of writing, we've been having a crazy couple of weeks in the Landen household, but I'm hoping things will level off soon.

I did notice that this blog went untouched for almost a month. Honestly, there was a time where I was thinking of switching my entire website over to a different format, one without a blog, but for now, I'm staying put. I do like to have a place for my "writing about writing" ramblings, whenever they're longer than a tweet or a Facebook post, and while the layout isn't perfect, I think it's easy enough to find the information about my published works. These days, though, I've been focusing on Twitter and my newsletter, so if you're not already following me in those places, click those links!

Disintegration - Release Week

 

The official release day for Disintegration was on August 30th, and it was a great week! Pre-orders went out, some ARC reviews went up beforehand, pages have been read on Kindle Unlimited, and I even sold a couple of paperbacks. Phew! I'm also in the midst of some promo events, so let's have a link dump.

 

As a reminder, newsletter subscribers get a free PDF of Disintegration: The Prequels (check out that new AMAZING cover art!), as well as being the first to hear about news and sales and whatnot. If you haven't already signed up, there's a form in the corner, or you can use this link.

In addition to having some reviews on Amazon, there are more ratings and reviews on the Goodreads page. I guess now is a good time to not-so-gracefully include a reminder to support indie authors by reviewing their books, as we're all on an endless mission to defeat the Dreaded Algorithm (for Amazon, Twitter, etc.).

Also this week, I was interviewed by Aubry Andrews, which was a ton of fun! If you're not already following Aubry on Twitter, DO IT NOW. In addition to posting submitted confessions every Friday, she's a big supporter of her fellow erotica authors, and is just plain fun. You won't regret it.

I'm still working on some other promotions, along with trying to find some time to work on my new project, and I'll have some relevant tropes for you in the coming weeks. Busy, busy, busy!

Racing Toward the Finish (or, Link Party!, Part the Next)

Hello, my lovelies! I hope this winter holiday season is treating you well, or whatever 2020's version of well is. As we race toward the end of this year, I've been racing toward the end of my work-in-progress, Elemental Forces. Even without having gotten to the very end yet, it's the longest thing I've written by a wide margin since the kids were born 5.5 years ago, so that's exciting. I don't want to jinx anything or invite more misfortune into this year, especially after what happened the last time I did that, but I will say that I think I will hit my goal of finishing up the main writing of this book by the end of the year. (Will I get it fully edited and ready to be shipped off by then? Ehhh, let's not push it.)

Since I've been working like crazy on the book, I don't have an interesting blog post ready to go. But it's been a while since I last posted, and I do have an assortment of fun links and promises of more in the future. I'll drop these here for now to hold you over, and if I don't manage to check in before then, enjoy the rest of your holiday season and Happy New Year!

Blazing Justice at The TBR Pile - As the name might indicate, the reviewers over at The TBR Pile have been busy busy busy this season, but they finally got to Blazing Justice and loved it! Their 5-star review of it means it'll be entered into their Book of the Month contest at the end of December, which I will absolutely keep you posted on. (Now would be a good time to follow me on Twitter if you haven't already done so, as I've been hanging out there a lot this pandemic.)

In January, The TBR Pile will also have a feature on Hunting Astrid, complete with a real blog post I wrote. As always, stay tuned for further details!

Speaking of Hunting Astrid....

Best Lesfic Reviews - I get nervous about submitting to review sites, because of course I want people to read and review my books, but they're not obligated to love my every word, and I know I'm not supposed to interact with reviews anyway, and so on. Best Lesfic Reviews is critical yet fair, so I was especially nervous here, and then pleased with the outcome. Again, I know I'm not supposed to interact with the reviews/reviewer, but I did wind up having a nice conversation with her via email, and it was fun to get her ideas for future installments. (Oh, did I mention my editor suggested this could have series potential? YIKES.)

Broome's Books LGBTQ+ Book Reviews - Another great summary and review by another great person I'm glad to have met. And now my own to-read pile is getting longer and longer thanks to the rest of her site! Years ago, I dabbled with posting book reviews as part of my site here, and it is really hard to keep with everything, so I'm so appreciative of readers who take on this often thankless task.

Promo - Christmas at The Vintage Bookshop of Memories, by Elizabeth Holland

I used to be one of those people who refused to acknowledge Christmas until December 1st at the earliest. Then over the years, I was gradually convinced to put up the tree and decorations right after Thanksgiving, with the claims that it would be easiest since we're all home for the long weekend. Fiiiine, sure whatever. And now, here I am with a Christmas-themed promo on November 1st. But you know what? This is 2020, everything we know and love has gone out the window, and since I do actually love the Christmas season, I say LET'S GO. WE'RE DOING THIS NOW.

To help get you in a jolly mood, Elizabeth Holland's new release Christmas at The Vintage Bookshop of Memories is out today. The book can be read as a stand-alone, or as a sequel to her earlier work, The Vintage Bookshop of Memories. Gaze upon the festive cover for a while, then keep scrolling for the blurb and buy links!

Whisk yourself away to the village of Ivy Hatch and enjoy the Christmas Day celebrations...

 

Katie Wooster's life has been turned upside down; she's single, homeless and unemployed. With Christmas around the corner, Katie finds herself in The Vintage Bookshop of Memories. As the village's magical charm begins to weave its way into Katie's heart, can her best friend, Prue Clemonte, persuade her to leave the past behind her and open her heart to romance again? Local farmer, Austin Harrington is ready to sweep her off her feet, but Katie isn't sure she's ready for a new relationship.

As Katie watches her best friend marry her soulmate, she wonders whether she can have her own happily ever after.

 

Return to Ivy Hatch this Christmas, where the residents are waiting to celebrate with you... 

 

Buy Links:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon CA

Amazon AU

Starting Something New (Spoiler Alert, It's a Newsletter)

All the cool kids have one, so I guess I should too? Something like that. A few posts ago, I mentioned how the rights for some of my earlier books have reverted back to me, and I plan on gradually re-releasing them. Combined with me also occasionally releasing shorter works that never found a good home, this all means that maybe, just maybe, I might have more than one new release a year. Either way, it's not a bad idea to have a quick way to announce news for people who don't check the blog and/or social media.

The form to sign up is over there in the right column, or you can use this link if you're on a mobile device or tablet. I promise I will not spam you. Hell, some months I barely remember to keep up with this blog, right? My current plan is to send an email whenever I have a new release or a big sale going on, and maybe a monthly roundup of blog posts or something like that.

I'll be keeping it simple and I'm sure I'll be working out the kinks along the way. If there are glaring issues or if you just want to say hi or whatever, the contact form in its own tab always works, as does emailing me at thea at thealanden dot com.

(See? Short and sweet. Just like any mass emails I'll send.)

Promo - Shade Addiction, by Lea Bronsen

New York is on lockdown, as are many other parts of the world, so rather than freaking out nonstop, I'm choosing to take this to mean NO EXCUSES FOR NOT READING BOOKS. Especially wild rides like Shade Addiction, by Lea Bronsen. You know the drill—keep reading for the blurb, buy links, and a tantalizing excerpt.

Blurb:
Ex-boxer Mike Logan struggles to put a brutal past behind and make ends meet as a bus driver. When a young runaway settles for an all-night ride, he seizes the chance to do a good deed—get her home safely. But first, they’ll drive around and talk.

What he doesn’t anticipate is that this broken night angel is also a sexy little minx needing a lot more…and not just the gentle kind.

(This is an expanded edition of the story previously featured in the anthology Passion, Pleasure, Pain in 2019)

Excerpt:
She gives me a long, languorous look. I think I know what it means: She’s interested by my wild side. Dark attracts dark. She believes she’s found the same kind of fallen angel as she is, a soul mate.

Wrong, kiddo. What you need is someone good, not broken like me.

She reaches over the table to pat my chest. “So hard. Jesus. You definitely work out.”

Her touch sends electric sparks to my groin. My cock pulses. I push her hand away. “Don’t do that.”

“Why?”

“It’s inappropriate.”

“Why?”

I sigh. “I’m thirty-two, you’re what?”

“Nineteen.”

“Nineteen, that’s very young. I could easily be accused of taking advantage of you. Did you see how the waitress treated me?”

She crosses her arms underneath her boobs. “But I’m an adult, and I have boyfriends.”

“You have boyfriends.”

“Yeah.”

“Like, many?”

“Yeah.” She holds my gaze.

I don’t know why I had to make a deal of that.

She continues, “So, it’s not like I’d let anybody touch me if I didn’t want them to.”

“Well, I don’t want you to touch me. Let’s go.” 

Available from

Amazon.com / Amazon.uk / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / iBooks / Smashwords

Universal buy link

Put the book on your to-read shelf on Goodreads

 


About the Author:

Lea Bronsen likes her reads hot, fast, and edgy, and strives to give her own stories the same intensity. After a deep dive on the unforgiving world of gangsters with her debut novel Wild Hearted, she divides her writing time between romantic suspenses, dark erotic romances, and crime thrillers.

Meet Lea Bronsen on

Website / Blog / Facebook / Twitter / BookBub / Instagram / Goodreads / Amazon

Promo - Carnivora #1, by Lea Bronsen

Today, I'm exciting to be featuring Lea Bronsen's latest release, Carnivora Part 1. As I told her, thrillers are popular in the Landen household (with the two adults, anyway), and we spent the summer reading a bunch and comparing notes. I'll turn things over to Lea for a bit, and then be sure to keep scrolling for her awesome trailer and an excerpt that's sure to grab your attention!

***

Hi, and thank you for having me on your blog!

I’ve always been fascinated by dark psychological thrillers that mess with your mind and keep you on the edge of your seat. I toyed with the genre writing my debut novel Wild Hearted, but labeled it a crime drama. Its sequel, Carnivora, evolved over six years to become a full-blown hold-your-breath thriller that deals with grave issues such as kidnapping, child sex trafficking, and self-harm.

Telling five parallel stories with as many voices, it gives you the perspectives of a police informant, a hunted gangster, a mad avenger, an inconsolable girlfriend, and a psychotic kidnapper. I pull no punches weaving these stories, so be prepared for a dark, gritty, and graphic read – a little dirty on the erotic side – that I hope will play with your strings and stick with you for a long time.

Please note that this is part 1 of Carnivora and I am currently working on parts 2 and 3, so if those cliffhangers at the end are killing you, don’t despair. The continuation is right around the corner!

Blurb:
Fight evil with evil.

TOMOR
Crime lord Tomor is serving a life sentence behind bars. Without warning, he’s abducted by mysterious men. A sick manhunt is on, with people around him dying like flies. He will need all his street flair and gangster skills to prevent his loved ones from ending up on the death list.

LUZ
Luz grieves the loss of her lover while striving to take care of their baby. The last thing she needs is to fall for the new neighbor.

DAVID
A year after he betrayed his adoptive father and sent him to jail, David is slowly rebuilding his life. Then everything falls apart again: he learns that Tomor has escaped, and his police connections lead him to a child sex trafficking ring involving cold, powerful men.

The cops are in over their heads with “Project Carnivora” … Perhaps the only one who can help bust the pedophile predators is an equally vicious devil: Tomor, the country’s most hunted criminal.

Excerpt:
“Time to change your bandage again,” the nurse mutters, voice cool, and pulls my orange-colored sleeve up to the elbow.

She unrolls the long strip of bandage from my wrist and tugs at one corner of the gauze plastered on my wound. It sticks as if glued to the freshly grown skin, and instead of removing the gauze carefully, she tears if off hard, discharging pain through my arm, wrist-to-shoulder.

I open my eyes and lift my head off the pillow. “What the fuck are ya doing, trying to reopen the wound or something?”

“Like you care.” She stops pulling and glares, gauze between her fingers. “I can see who you are inside. You’re playing tough, aren’t you, bad guy? But you can’t fool me.”

“Shut up.” I lay down again, huffing, and stare at the white ceiling above me with its rows of long neon lights.

“You’re a good man.”

I glance back. “I said, shut the fuck up.”

Her eyes shine. She rips off the remaining gauze, ignoring my grunt of pain, and throws it in a bin. “Look.”

No fuck.

“Look at it,” she insists, voice low and demanding.

No. I know what I’ve done, and I can imagine what it looks like. A six centimeter-long deep, reddish, scratched-up ridge along my artery. Layers of skin, fat, meat, and whatnot must be visible and sweating a pinkish liquid from the reborn pores. I don’t need to see it.

I guess the girl wants me to be so horrified, I’ll never attempt suicide again. That’s right. She wants to shock me into acceptance.

You gotta be fucking kidding me, little thing.

She shakes her head. “I don’t understand why they gave you the life sentence.”

“You mean they shoulda given me the chair?”

Instead of responding to my sarcasm, she pivots to look up at the clock and widens her eyes as if realizing she forgot an appointment. Face tense, she returns to her work, applies some cool, gel-like liquid on the wound, and bandages it with quick routine moves.

What’s up with her? In my three days in this woman’s company, I’ve noted the things that make her tick. Maybe she’s upset because I’m leaving the infirmary soon. Earlier, she said she didn’t know when I’d be ready to go back to my cell. She probably knows now, but doesn’t want to tell me.

The door opens. She jumps.

A uniformed guard pokes his head in, checks the small room, and exits.

She seems frozen in place, features tense. Staring ahead and taking deep breaths as if trying to regain composure.

I cock my head a little. “What’s going on? They gonna transfer me?”

She visibly swallows and fixes her gaze on some point on the wall.

I snicker. “Are you sad ‘cause I’m leaving?”

Ha, I can be so ugly, when the girl clearly likes me.

As she sits there avoiding me, I take the time to check out her tits, and drink in the amazing sight of their pressing against her green blouse with each breath. She doesn’t have a name tag. Come to think of it, none of the personnel do. Evidently, so the inmates can’t identify their ‘caretakers’, and should they by some miracle leave the premises, track them down.

I nod to her blouse. “What’s your name?”

She twists back to me, brows raised, before shaking her head. “I can’t tell you that.”

“C’mon, I’ll never see you again.” I grin, then add with an ironic snicker, teasing her, “They’ll never let me slash my wrists, or hang myself.”

She looks away and busies herself collecting the medical stuff, throwing a quick, almost invisible glance to the door. What the hell is making her so nervous?

Coldness fills my chest. Something’s up.

“Come on, Babe,” I coax with my most gentle, sensual voice, wanting to buy time. “Tell me your name.”

“Why?” she whispers, fidgeting with the roll of bandage.

“’Cause I want a name to your pretty face when I jack off in my cell."

 Available From

Books2Read / Amazon.com / Amazon.uk / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / iBooks / Smashwords

Put the book on your to-read shelf on Goodreads

See photos that inspired me to write the book on Pinterest

About the Author:

Lea Bronsen likes her reads hot, fast, and edgy, and strives to give her own stories the same intensity. After a deep dive on the unforgiving world of gangsters with her debut novel Wild Hearted, she divides her writing time between romantic suspenses, dark erotic romances, and crime thrillers.

Meet Lea Bronsen on

Website / Blog / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Goodreads / Amazon / Pinterest