2018 Release Schedule Changes

Hello everyone! I’ve made a few changes to my release schedule for 2018, so I wanted to update you.

The books slated for release in 2018 are:

While all of these books will still be released, there’s been a few modifications to the dates. I have also added a boxed set with A Scoundrel’s Ruin. 

The Scandalous Widow was originally slated to release on June 19, 2018. It will now release on April 24, 2018. This book is up for preorder at Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, and Nook. It will be available on Google Play after release.

The Lady Rebels was slated to be released on May 29, 2018.  I have moved the date to September 4, 2018*. I expect that this book will be available before that, but I wanted to make sure I had a cushion. I have removed this book from preorder on Kobo, iBooks, Nook, and Smashwords until I am certain of the release date. The good news is that this book is going to be a lot longer than I originally thought (it’ll be a full length novel, probably around 75,000 words if not longer), so you get more book! Huzzah! This book has also vastly changed since I sat down to plot it in 2016–the suspense elements are completely different now, the actual overarching goals of both hero/heroine changed, and the cast of secondary characters has also changed. I like to think that I simply had to become a writer who could handle a book like The Lady Rebels, since in its original 2016 incarnation, I do not think it would at all be the book that Matthew and Sally truly deserve.

*TL:DR, release date moved, preorder for The Lady Rebels cancelled until I am certain of release date. Expanded reasoning below for those of you who want a more detailed explanation. 😉

Covert Heiresses # 2 is slated to be released in Winter (anywhere from October 2018 to March 2019 depending on how long the book takes to write). I am no longer placing books on preorder or setting exact release dates until I have a finished first draft, which is why I can’t give you a closer date. From 2015-2017, I did this, and while I was mostly able to meet the deadlines, I found that it adds too much stress to my body. (See **explanation on this below). I am not naming which book comes next in the series until I sit down and do the planning.

There is no change in The Determined Duchess (available on 3-27-18) and the boxed set A Lord for Every Lady (available 4-10-18).

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*If you want to know the exact reason why I have moved the release date for The Lady Rebels, continue on below. This is a longer explanation which may not matter to you at all as a reader, hence why I’ve placed it below the more pertinent information.

When I first started writing The Lady Rebels, it was in probably January of 2016. This book has been with me for a long, long time. Because I started a business in late 2015 (Quillfire Author Services, where I am an assistant and marketing consultant for other authors), my writing time got diminished, and I shelved the project to write The Mad Countess (Gothic Brides #1) for the Mystified anthology. In 2016, I also had a lot of health problems that sidelined me from writing, and in those periods of pain, I lost a lot of my motivation to write. (TL:DR, I am chronically ill with three autoimmune disorders.***) But when I wrote The Mad Countess, it reminded me how much I adore writing, and I picked up The Lady Rebels to work on again in late 2016.

Only to discover that I hadn’t laid the groundwork for the book I now really needed to write. Sally’s story has always been important to me, because she is a survivor in so many ways. I am determined that I will do her justice. I realized I needed a book in-between Beauty and the Rake and The Lady Rebels that would set off the war between my three fictional gangs in the rookeries.

So Stealing the Rogue’s Heart was born. I published that in January 2017, and picked up The Lady Rebels again, expecting to publish it in July of 2017. Except real life intervened again–this time in awesome, awesome way. My husband and I ended up finding our dream house a lot quicker than we expected, and so in February, we moved towns. So began the period to renovate our house. Our family also expanded with the addition of a new dog who needed training.

In 2017, I worked on The Determined Duchess and The Scandalous Widow, both of which are completed and released in anthologies (Charmed at Christmas and It Started with a Whisper, respectively). I released backlist books in several boxed sets. I kept working on The Lady Rebels in the background, building these characters up in my mind. I also continued to run Quillfire Author Services, which has now transformed from a small side project to my day job (this is a good thing. I really, really love helping other authors, and the girls I work with are absolutely some of the best people in publishing. I love running my two businesses).

Now, in 2018, I’m happily working on The Lady Rebels full-speed ahead this time. I have a working plot (actually, possibly, the most detailed of a plot I’ve ever done before), and I am LOVING SO MUCH writing this book. But because this is my darkest, grittiest book to date, I want to make absolutely certain that the book you get is the best book I can put out. I have learned (see ** below) that while I can meet those madcap deadlines I was setting for myself, my health falters, and I don’t want to cut corners in edits, either. While it is absolutely my hope to release The Lady Rebels in the fall, I figured I’d be nicer to myself and move the date back, because I’m already starting to feel pain in my fingers/wrists/hips again. I have cancelled the preorder on Kobo, Nook, iBooks, and Smashwords until I actually know when the date will be, and so that I can give myself a bit of a break after feeling very burned out.

** So, when I first started writing, I really struggled with finishing things on time. I am a procrastinator by nature. I learned that if I put a book up on preorder when I was 2/3 of the way done with a draft, it made me commit to finishing the book (as when I put it up on Amazon I can’t change the date without losing preorders for a year). This worked magnificently with Beauty and the Rake and Stealing the Rogue’s Heart, which were both books I wrote with a lot of problems with character arcs or plot. This did not work with I Spy a Duke, and while I met the deadline, the resulting disenchantment I felt with having to write the book so many times over again is why it’s taken me so long to return to Covert Heiresses. (This year, I promise! I’m working on ideas now for Arden’s book!!)

This also did not work with The Lady Rebels, as you can see. While I can move release dates on preorders on Kobo, iBooks and Nook (and have, see above), I don’t like doing it and it makes me feel icky, like I’ve broken a promise to you, good reasons or not. This is why I have removed The Lady Rebels from preorder, until I really have a better idea of the book’s length, and how long drafting and editing will take me. I am doing a lot of work as an administrative assistant as part of Quillfire Author Services, and thus my schedule is fluctuating.

The lesson I have learned is that some books are hard to estimate in length, and that not every book is a walk in the park. Some books will make you rewrite them four times (I’m looking at you, The Scandalous Widow). 

**These autoimmune disorders are a lot of the reason why I pursue independent publishing, as discussed in my FAQ. The short version is that during an autoimmune flare-up, I have to be very careful how much work I do, or the flare-up extends and I’m sidelined for weeks in pain. If you want to learn more about what it is like to be chronically ill, I recommend reading The Spoon Theory. For me, fibromyalgia is the most prevalent of my disorders. In particularly bad times, it makes it very hard to type without pain, and affects my mobility. (You may see me at reader events with my pink cane, which helps give support to my hips, as I cannot stand for longer periods without it).

I have had these illnesses for must of my adult life (I was 18 when diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis), so I have learned how to deal with them. I write often about my chronic illnesses in hopes it’ll raise awareness of invisible diseases, but let me be the first to say I’m fine and I’ve got this managed (for the most part, see moving of release dates). I include this explanation just because I feel like as a reader, you deserve to know what to expect from me.

 

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