Hi Reader,

Buckle up, this is going to be a long one. I've got a lot to tell you.

(TL/DR version: Pre-order Obsidian Prince now! And ping me back if you want an advanced copy for reviewing.)

Some better news than last time, but it's going to sound bad at first. I was let go from my day job on Monday. But, I wasn't happy there, and had already been interviewing with another company. I also felt like I desperately needed a vacation.

So, I now have a few weeks off, with a decent severance package to tide me over. And, fingers crossed, I'll probably have a new job before my book is out. In the meantime, I'm just enjoying sleeping in, gardening, and writing the beginning of Liliana book 4.

Writing News

Which brings me to the best news of all, Obsidian Prince, Liliana and the Fae of Fayetteville book 3, is up for pre-order on Amazon now! Order, please!

And the cover is next-level gorgeous. I'm all kinds of delighted, um, except for the fact that I missed a huge misspelling. D'oh! I was so busy being blown away by the art, I missed that the artists at Miblart had spelled Obsidian with an extra I, Obisidian. I missed it, my editor missed it, the editor in chief missed it. No one saw it until I was pasting it here.

So, thanks. In a weird way, you just saved me from making a huge, embarrassing mistake. Imagine if the books had been printed like that! It's fixed now on Amazon. Thank you Miblart for making such a distractingly beautiful cover.

Funny side story, Elizabeth Moon won the Nebula Award for Best Novel 2005. We fenced at our mutual friend Iolo's house at the time. At fencing practice, she showed everyone her award, and the misspelling on the base. Even the Nebula folks can screw up apparently. (By the way, Iolo, aka David R. Watson's first book was recently published, 1920 Tunguska Terror, Aerorangers book 1. Dragons and biplanes, very cool.) My friend, Alan, says the best way to find a misspelling in any social media or blog post is to push the "Publish" button.

You Want an Advanced Copy to Review?

I'd love to send advanced digital copies to as many folks as are willing to read and give an honest review. I've been woefully slow to write this that by the time you get the book, read it, and are ready to review, you can probably do it on Amazon. Reviews on Goodreads are super helpful, too. And if you wouldn't mind putting an additional review on Bookbub, that would help me a lot.

The slow burn romance kicks into a conflagration in this book. Be careful it doesn't burn your fingers. And, of course, there's lots of fun quirky characters, plot twists, and some pulse-pounding action.

Are you up for it?

Just ping me with a reply to this email, or on any social media, and I'll send you an advanced copy asap, before it's even officially published. Facebook, Instagram, or Bluesky are where I'm at the most these days.

Also, I'd love to build a "street team," a team of folks who can help me promote and get the word out when a new book comes out. If you like my books, and have any way to help get the word out, then ping me a reply. Let me know you'd like to help. "Hidden gem" may sound like a good thing to be called in a review, but I would really like my books to be a lot less hidden.

It goes without saying that I will also attempt to be a bit less terrible about consistent book promotion myself. (And, no doubt, that my ADHD butt will probably fail at remaining consistent over time, but man, I will be really motivated about it for a while at least.)

Life Stuff, Including a Coming Out of Sorts

Life has been, um, interesting lately. In the Chinese curse sense. But, due to being fired and given a decent severance package, I now have the entire month of October off. I have been gardening like a crazy woman. My roses are gorgeous. The weather is becoming less unbearably hot. Life feels for me like it just took a big breath and let it all out.

I want to tell you something huge that I haven't really told many people yet. In the middle of all the awful, insane things that happened this year, I got assessed by a psychiatrist for some brain differences that have been becoming more and more obvious to me. I think they were a big part of why I had trouble at the job I had last year where I went from working as part of a well-oiled machine with a team I enjoyed, to having a complete burnout, meltdown kind of situation when a megacorp bought our company and changed everything in the worst possible way.

So, first I went to a psychiatrist in July who specializes in neuro-divergence. He said, "I've been talking to you for 20 minutes and I can tell that you're ADHD, the rest is going to take a while." Which, was not a surprise. I'd known for most of my life that I was ADHD, just hadn't bothered to get an official diagnosis. My mother got one when she was 62, so I guess I beat her by a few years.

Next, I got referred to a specialist, took a half dozen screening tests on line, then spent 4 solid hours with that specialist doing every cognitive test ever invented (at least, that's how it felt.) So, what was the conclusion a month later, the day before Armadillocon, after he went over all those tests?

I'm autistic.

Ironically, my first hint at this was when I wrote this character in a story named Liliana, and I made her mind work differently. You might be familiar with her. ;-) The way I showed that she thought differently was by putting thoughts I had myself into her brain. I let her actually do things I'd just thought about doing, or hadn't done since I was a kid because everyone said, "That's weird."

So, for the last month, I've been trying to wrap my head around what being autistic means to me. As my husband said, "You're still the same person you were before." He also said, "You're still awesome," which is why he's clearly the best husband ever.

And in other news, Armadillocon was a blast. P-Con was cool, too, but I forgot to get any pictures. D'oh!

Garden and Other Hobbies

Did I mention that my roses look amazing? Because, right now, my roses look amazing. Especially the double delight roses, which, sharp eyes will notice even made it onto the cover of my new book. Squee!

On top of that, I'm still running the archery and thrown weapons practice for the SCA Stronghold of Hellsgate, aka the area around Fort Cavazos (formerly Fort Hood). In addition to two literary conferences and a work conference, I also made it to two SCA events in September. (It was a crazy month.) And, at the last event, I won a little fun tourney in thrown weapons. Elizabeth called me the "Exalted queen of airborne pointy things" a while back for an awesome spear throw. I got such a kick out of it, I had that put on a t-shirt. Which, of course, I wore to the last practice.

Spears are about the only weapon I'm set up for practicing with at home these days.

My father-in-law gave me that round bale, said it had been sitting around too long to feed it to the horses, so now it's all mine. I'm getting pretty decent at 10' and 15' straight throws with spears. I still suck at 20', though. I just don't have the arm strength to get the spears that far accurately.

You might notice I was only practicing with 5 spears, not my usual 6. This lovely lady had her web anchored on one of them and I didn't have the heart to mess it up for her.

That's all I've got, but I have to say my cow pen daisies are doing at least as well as the roses, and they have been covered with painted patch butterfly caterpillars. Fall here is so beautiful.

I'll ping you as soon as I have a link for advanced reader copies.

Please, forward to everyone you know. I encourage anyone who would enjoy my books and/or these letters to subscribe to the newsletter.

Cheers,

Paige

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Alis volat propriis