Category: Book talk

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    • Echoes of Never – available for pre-order

    Book cover for Echoes of Never by Jessica Meats

    Travelling through the multi-universes, Gareth hunts for his infant son. He was taken by someone that Gareth trusted. Abby travelled back in time to prevent a future cataclysm, abducted the baby, and took him through a mysterious, rainbow portal.

    In his search, he finds new versions of lost friends who can help him in this quest, which will lead him to the strangest place he’s ever experienced.

    For among the multi-universes, there is a place unconnected to the other universes and with its own timeline, known as the Shadow World. There, waits the Abomination, a man who can perceive potential timelines and manipulate the worlds around him. He knows Gareth is coming for his son. He planned for this.

    When he finally faces the Abomination, there is one question Gareth must answer: how much is he willing to sacrifice to get his son back?

    Echoes of Never, the final book in the Shadows of Tomorrow trilogy, is now available for pre-order from the publisher’s website. You may be able to order it elsewhere too. Waterstone’s has a listing for it with an option to order but at the moment the Amazon page is just a listing with “currently unavailable”.

    The book is due for release on 26th November 2020.

    Echoes of Never continues the story begun in Shadows of Tomorrow and Between Yesterdays, a story of other timelines, other times, and creatures breaking through from another universe.

    Posted on By jessmeats
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    • Diverse Reading Challenge

    There are various diverse reading challenges out there, but I’ve made my own for me. Other people are welcome to take this and adapt if if you want. I intend to read:

    • Written by an author of colour x 5
    • Main character of colour
    • Translated into English
    • Written by a trans author
    • Trans main character
    • Asexual main character
    • Gay main character
    • Lesbian main character
    • Non-binary main character
    • A classic I’ve never read before x 2
    • Written by a disabled author
    • Disabled main character
    • Non-neurotypical main character
    • A genre other than SF&F x 5
    • Mentally ill main character
    • Book I loved as a child
    • Based on non-European folk tales
    • Poetry
    • Book from a small press
    • Self-published book

    I expect there will be overlap between these characters. I read a lot of SF&F books, so I’m specifically going to try and read 5 books in other genres to widen my reading, but it’s likely that some or all of those 5 will also meet at least one of the other criteria.

    I will share reviews and progress here and on my YouTube channel.

    Any recommendations people have for books that meet some or all of these criteria would be welcome. If you’re an author and your book meets any of these criteria, let me know.

    Posted on By jessmeats
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    • A Monster’s Kindness

    Several months ago, I was really excited when my novella, A Monster’s Kindness, was accepted by Less Than Three Press. It was due to come out in a couple of months.

    This week, the publisher announced that they are shutting down operations. I think this is really sad for many reasons. A large number of the book recommendations on the Queer Reading List were published by this company, so this is a loss for the fans of queer sci-fi and fantasy in general, but it’s upsetting personally to me because of my book.

    Thankfully the edits have been done on the text of A Monster’s Kindness, and I received a sketch from the cover artist who was hired. The folks at LT3 have said that they will pay editors and artists to finish projects that have been assigned, so it looks like I will get a cover design alongside the edited manuscript. Given that all this hard work has been done to get the book ready for publication, I will probably self-publish A Monster’s Kindness. It was always going to be ebook only because of its length, so I can take that final step of publication myself.

    I think it’s a huge shame about Less Than Three Press. Most of the books in their online marketplace will only be available until the end of the month. If there was anything of theirs that you were considering buying, I guess now is the time to do so. While you still can.

    Watch this space for news of A Monster’s Kindness.

    Posted on By jessmeats
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    • Shadows of Tomorrow Book 3

    I got some good news this week. A while ago, I sent the third book of the Shadows of Tomorrow trilogy off to the publisher. This week, I got a response and they have accepted it. I had hoped that they would, especially given that they published the first two books in that trilogy and even produced an audio book of Shadows of Tomorrow, but I still wasn’t sure. The contract I signed for the other books only gave them first rights of refusal on the book, not any sort of guarantee that they would publish it.

    It would have been really awkward if they’d said no at this point, because finding a publisher for the third book in a trilogy that’s already had two books published would have been a real challenge. Anyone I approach would probably wonder why I wasn’t going with the publisher of the first two, so I’m really glad that I don’t have to be in that position.

    We’re a long way from the book coming out, which I’m sure will upset one of my coworkers who has been asking for news about this book’s publication since about five minutes after she finished reading the second book. It takes a while for a book to go through the publishing process, with all the stages of editing that involves, but I will keep the blog updated as I get more news. Watch this space.

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    • Acceptance

    While I was on the writer’s retreat which I posted a review for last week, I finished off a novella. This was a gay, fantasy, romance about a man being sacrificed to a monster and finding that the monster showed him more kindness than his former neighbours. I submitted it to Less Than Three Press, a publishing house that specialises in LGBTQ+ romances (a number of their titles are on the queer reading list), and I received the automatic response saying that I would hear back from them in approximately six to eight weeks.

    When I saw an email in my inbox less than a week later, my heart sank, because the response was so much quicker than I expected and, from experience, rejections are always significantly faster than acceptances. I saw that email and I knew that my story had been turned down.

    Or not.

    Apparently acceptances can be that fast because they had said yes. They sent me a contract to publish the novella as an e-book, which I have now signed. The book still has to go through the editing process, but watch this space for more news as it comes out.

    This is the fastest I’ve ever had a story accepted and it’s made me more than a little excited. It’s always a thrill to have a story accepted, but to have it accepted in less than a week on its first submission is something different. I can only assume that it means they really liked it and I can’t wait to share it with the world.

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    • The Problem of the Shiny New Idea

    I’ve never been very good at focus when it comes to my writing. I can write a lot in a short period of time, but it’s not always for the thing that I feel I should be working on. At any given time, I might be actively working on a couple of books, another couple of fanfics, a short story, and have the ideas for half a dozen other stories bubbling away in my head like something on the backburner of the stove, ready to boil over.

    The advantage of this is that I’ve never really struggled with writer’s block. If one of my stories is at an awkward place, I can write something else until I have a bit of inspiration about how to fix whatever is flagging. Sometimes this happens in the middle of a writing session. I’ll write a few hundred words on one project and then find myself stuck because I need to research something, or I can’t think of the right word, or I’m just not sure what should happen next. When that happens, I can flip over to another writing project and usually blast out a few hundred words on that instead.

    This approach can also be useful with editing, because I can finish the first draft of a story and then go and focus on my other projects for a bit, and when I come back to that first story I can look at it with fresh eyes and spot the problems that need to be fixed.

    The disadvantage of this approach is that the part of me going, “I really should finish the second draft of the third Shadows of Tomorrow book,” gets drowned out by the other part of me that goes, “There’s a shiny new idea over there.”

    I have some time booked off work soon that I’m using as writer’s retreat. I really, really should spend that time finishing the third Shadows of Tomorrow book. Anyone want to make bets about how quickly I get distracted by a new and shiny idea?

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    • Amazon Alternatives

    Recently, there has been a lot of discussion around strike action against Amazon because of their horrific workplace practices and their treatment of employees. There are horror stories from warehouse workers and delivery drivers about low wages, unpaid hours which push the wages below the minimum, ridiculous productivity demands and penalties meaning that workers pee in bottles because they don’t have time for toilet breaks, and the fact that vast numbers of employees are living in abject poverty while the CEO is worth over a hundred billion dollars, which is more money than a person could ever hope to spend in their lifetime.

    Amazon’s profit margins are so high that they could easily pay all their employees a living wage and still be making billions, so there is no excuse for this mistreatment of staff.

    As such, there have been calls for strikes. There has been some confusion over dates, but the current information is that strikes will be taking place over Prime day, to hit a major promotional event, with the strike between the 15th and 17th of July. Customers are being discouraged from buying from Amazon during the strike (and boycotting longer if you can do, until the company makes some changes).

    As an author, so much of what I do is based around trying to get people to sites like Amazon to buy my books, but I don’t want to support Amazon during this strike action, so here are some alternatives if you’re looking to buy my books.

    Shadows of Tomorrow and its sequel Between Yesterdays are both available from Waterstones and other mainstream bookshops.

    The Codename Omega series, Omega Rising, Traitor in the Tower, and Hidden in the Signal, can be bought directly from Lulu as both paperbacks and ebooks.

    My latest novel, Wolf Unleashed, is available directly from the publisher, Guardbridge Books or through Waterstones and other major bookshops.

    The ebook of Child of the Hive, my first novel, can be bought from Smashwords.

    My superhero parody, The Adventures of Technicality Man, is only available for purchase from Amazon, so to support the strike, I’m giving this book away through Instafreebie. Through until the end of July you can get a copy of this ebook for free.

    I hope that if you want to buy my books, you will consider buying them from somewhere other than Amazon until the demands for better treatment of workers are met.

    Posted on By jessmeats
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    • Wolf Unleashed – now available for pre-order

    I’m delighted to announce that my latest novel, Wolf Unleashed, is now available for pre-order. This is a book I’m really proud of. I’ve poured a lot of effort and emotion into this book over the past few years and I can’t wait to share it with the world.

    Remember: werewolves are people too.

    Cover art for Wolf Unleashed

    Werewolves are kept as slaves. Exploited to perform dangerous labour, or kept as exotic pets by rich sadists who want a status symbol, werewolves have no rights.

    When Crystal’s brother is bitten by a rogue werewolf, her family is advised to think of him as dead. But she refuses to forget him.

    Looking for news from within the werewolf community leads her to purchase Thomas, a rebellious werewolf with a string of abusive former owners. Crystal and Thomas must learn to trust each other enough to help solve each other’s problems. Together, they can work to build a movement aimed at bringing rights and justice to all.

    This is an urban fantasy, paranormal romance with a difference. It teems with intersectional issues of race, gender, and sexual identity. This is a story of injustice and anger, of love and compassion, of rebellion and hope.

    5 Stars – “It was a story that drew me in… I enjoyed how the story developed and how werewolf slavery was tackled by some very brave characters. They took on a fight against a system that needed to be changed, and often it looked like they would be torn apart… I wish there was more of this quality writing out there. A fantastic read!” — Kim Anisi for Readers’ Favorite

    Order now

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    • Cover Art Reveal

    I am thrilled to present the cover art for my latest novel, Wolf Unleashed.

    Cover art for Wolf Unleashed

    Wolf Unleashed is a story of injustice and anger, of love and compassion, of rebellion and hope. It explores themes of oppression and prejudice that echo the real world. This is a book I’m really proud of that I’ve poured a lot of emotion into and I can’t wait to share it with the world. I hope it means as much to you as it does to me.

    The official book launch is going to be at Follycon, this year’s Eastercon, in Harrogate. I hope to see some of you there. If not, I will be making announcements soon when the book is available for purchase.

     

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    • Book updates

    Hidden in the Signal coverI realised recently that I hadn’t added Hidden in the Signal, the third book in the Codename Omega series to the My Books page on this blog. I’ve remedied that mistake now. The information on the third instalment of Jenny’s adventures is now up.

    Hidden in the Signal continues the story of Jenny’s fight to uncover the truth of Grey’s Tower and to fight against the alien threat hiding on Earth.

    Keep an eye on that page because I will soon be adding details of my upcoming book, Wolf Unleashed. I just sent the last chapter of edits back to the line editor today. I think there’s just one more round of checks before the text of the book is ready to go. We will be launching the book at this years Eastercon, Follycon, in Harragote over the Easter weekend. I will also be giving a presentation on the representation of gods in science fiction at the convention. The agenda is still being finalised so I don’t know if I will be on any panels, but I will let you know if I am.

    If you’re going to be attending Follycon, come along to the book launch and say hi.