All of the pre-order links for The Solstice Countdown are now live!

Amazon (ebook)

**Amazon (paperback) (see below)

Barnes & Noble

Apple

Kobo

**Due to a snafu, the paperback version on Amazon is live now instead of next Tuesday. (Sigh) I contacted customer support, and to get it to revert to Pre-order status, I would have to unpublish the book and then republish it on March 9 (release day). People have already started ordering it, so I don’t want to unpublish it and potentially mess up their orders. So . . . if you want a print version, enjoy! To my ebook readers, I sincerely apologize. We don’t know what happened.

The edits are finished on The Solstice Countdown and the book is now in layout. Yay!!! Release date will be Tuesday, March 9 unless something drastic happens. Once my book designer finishes the layout (fonts and making my words look gorgeous), I’ll proof it and check for any needed corrections. Once I’ve approved it, my designer will send me the final files and I’ll upload them to my distributors – Draft2Digital (D2D) and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). KDP is for Amazon and D2D will go to every other retail outlet (Apple, BN, Kobo, etc., including libraries. KDP and D2D cover both print and ebook, all worldwide.

Once I get the book and cover uploaded, I’ll know when you can preorder. I’ll send out newsletters with links, and I’ll also be posting them on Twitter (@LisaShearin) and Facebook (facebook.com/LisaShearinAuthor). If you don’t follow me, go ahead and sign up. With my Mail Chimp account, I can only send out one newsletter a day. Not all sales links go live at the same time. For example, it could be Amazon in the morning, Apple at lunchtime, BN in a couple of days (they’re known for being slow). So I can post links as they go live (KDP and D2D notify me when each link goes live) on my social media, but I can only send one newsletter a day. Hope that’s not too confusing.     

By the way, in case some of you don’t know, I’ve been self-publishing for several years now. So when you see Murwood Media LLC on the back cover and copyright pages, that’s me. (I took the name from my Raine Benares series. Murwood is a forest in the goblin kingdom of Rheskilia.) Yep, I’m the proud president of my own little publishing company. I’ve retained the services of all the editors, artists, designers, and now audiobook narrator who I worked with on all three series, so many of you may not have noticed that it’s me and my little company instead of a big publisher. The main difference is their pay is coming out of my pocket now. ; )

I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the help of my incredible-beyond-words agent, Kristin Nelson. For about two years, she operated an offshoot of her agency so her authors could learn the ropes of doing it ourselves when we had a book we were passionate about but our publisher wasn’t. Or if our publisher dropped us or one of our series. She taught us, and then took off the training wheels and we were on our own.            

For those audiobook fans, I’m working on producing an audiobook version of The Solstice Countdown. And yes, I’ve contacted Johanna Parker, and we have found a production company we want to use. However, I need the final manuscript before I can begin the process. Until I get the ball rolling, I won’t know how long production will take, but I’ll keep you posted every step of the way. This isn’t going to be cheap. Some of you have offered to help, and I love you dearly for it. But I should do this on my own. I’ve got some money stashed away that’ll cover the production costs. So if you love audio books, buy it when it comes out so I don’t lose money. ; )      

I think that’s it for now!

L.

The manuscript is now with my copy editor, and I expect to get her suggestions and corrections by the end of this week. It’ll take me approximately another week to make the changes, then the book will be finished and ready to go into layout. Yay! I’m still working to release the book for sale by the end of the month, but it’ll definitely be out by the first week or two of March.

And no, it’s not available for preorder yet. I have to have the final, formatted manuscript to do that.

The cover art is done, and the title and other copy are being put in place. As soon as it’s finished, I’ll send out another newsletter and post it on my blog and social media accounts – Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

But in the meantime, here’s the back jacket copy for your reading enjoyment:          

As an agent of Supernatural Protection & Investigations (SPI), I know that evil doesn’t take a vacation, but this time it made an exception and followed me on mine.

I’m Makenna Fraser, seer for SPI, and I’m taking my boyfriend, goblin dark mage Rake Danescu, home for the holidays to meet my family.  

Weird Sisters is a small town in the North Carolina mountains that was built on a network of ley lines that magnify psychic and paranormal energies. It doesn’t show up on Google Maps, was named after the three witches in Macbeth, and the first word of the town name perfectly describes most of its human and supernatural citizens.

            A stranger has come to town, bringing with him a dormant source of primordial evil. Soon, magically gifted locals start vanishing, and the power of the ley lines is turned against us, cutting us off from the outside world and any source of help.   

For a town and its people steeped in magic, and my family sworn to protect both, it’s a race against time to use a local winter solstice phenomenon to free the town from its prison. But first, I must trust a father I’ve never known to fight and defeat an awakening evil that’s existed since the beginning of time. If we fail, and it is unleashed, the world will not survive.   

It’s 2021 (finally)! I’m hopeful that this year will be infinitely better than the last. I’ve finished writing The Solstice Countdown (SPI Files 7), and I’m pushing to get this one to you by late February. Since the book takes place when Mac takes Rake home to meet her family at Christmas, I really wanted to get this book out in mid-December. But since I had to have surgery in July to correct an inner ear problem that involved cutting into my skull and moving my brain out of the way so my surgeon could do what he needed to do. . . well, that kind of thing takes a wee bit of time to bounce back from. (By the way, the surgery was a complete success. Yay!)

**It has been brought to my attention that I haven’t posted since late July (two weeks after my surgery). Yikes! I am SO sorry. I’ve been working 7 days a week trying to get Solstice done. So the last some of you heard from me was my “Surgery update” post/newsletter. I promise to do better. In fact, I’ll start posting and sending out a newsletter on the first Monday of each month as “Proof of Life.” ; ) Now, back to the post. . .

I just got the suggested edits back from the fabulous Betsy Mitchell, and have started incorporating those today. Once I make Betsy’s edits, the book will go to my eagle-eyed copy editor Martha Trachtenberg. (An editor does the big-picture work and a copy editor takes care of consistency, grammar, and finding anything that was missed.) Then the book goes into layout.

For those of you who subscribe to my newsletter, the banner is a portion of The Solstice Countdown’s cover. (I’ve included it below for you.) As you can see, Rake Danescu is included along with Mac this time. I’ll send another newsletter soon to show you the full cover once my book designer has added the title and text to Julie Dillon’s amazing artwork. If you’re not subscribed to my newsletter, look over to the right nav bar and click on “Newsletter sign up.” It’s quick and easy.

There are no preorder links anywhere because the manuscript isn’t finalized. As soon as it is and the links are live, I’ll let you know here, and in a newsletter, and on my Twitter and Facebook accounts.

I’m working on the jacket copy now, but I can tell you this — all of the questions you have ever had about Mac, her family, and her background are answered in this book. In my humble opinion, it rocks!

That’s it for now. I’ll be sending more newsletters (and posts) in the coming weeks to show you the complete cover, the jacket copy, final pub date, and pre-order links.

Please be safe, stay healthy, and wear your mask!

Lisa

I’m baaack!

It’s been a week and a half since my inner ear surgery (via a craniotomy to get to it). Today is the first day back at my desk. Yay, me!

The autophony that was my worst symptom (hearing my voice in my head) is gone, as is hearing my heartbeat and footsteps in my head. Chewing is still just as loud to me, but my tinnitus is a lot less. I’ve also developed hyperacusis (normal sounds are loud, and loud sounds are jump inducing). All that being said, my surgeon says that there’s a really good chance all of these will eventually go away once the fluid in my inner ear is reabsorbed over the next few weeks. Sometimes, this can take a few months. Either way, I’m thrilled with how my recovery has gone so far.

Yesterday, Derek took the tape off my skull incisions, and I felt like a sheep that’d just been sheared. Suddenly, I wanted to go to the grocery store with him. Don’t worry, I was masked and gloved, and used the grocery cart like walker. ; )  And people are really good around here at wearing masks and social distancing  It was tiring, and I needed a nap when we got back, but I’m glad I did it. It really helped with the grogginess I’d been feeling since the surgery (which is another perfectly normal post-surgical thing).

I’ve been at my desk all morning taking care of bills, and I just printed out what I have so far on The Solstice Countdown (SPI Files 7). I’m about 1/3 of the way through the rough draft. Today and tomorrow, I’ll read through what I have to reacquaint my brain with the book, and start organizing it into chapters. On Wednesday, I’ll get back to writing. I’d hoped to have the rough draft finished by Labor Day, but with the surgery downtime, that might be a little too ambitious. So, I’m bumping that out a month to October 1. I’ll see how it goes. I do know this — y’all are gonna love this book! Plus, it’ll answer a lot of questions you’ve been wanting answered. I already know what I want the cover to look like, so I’ll be contacting Julie Dillon soon to start work on that. 

I think that’s pretty much it. Take care & stay safe!

Lisa 

I wanted to let you know that I’m having surgery this Thursday (July 16) to hopefully correct a condition I have—Superior Canal Dehiscence Syndrome (SCDS).  Essentially, it’s a hole inside my skull, below my brain and over my ear canal, which causes sound vibrations to bounce around inside my head. I included a link (above) to a Johns Hopkins article to explain it, and here’s another link to show where the hole in my head is. SCDS is rare with some seriously funky symptoms. The worst for me is autophony, which I started having over a year ago. I had a hearing test, and had some age-related hearing loss, so I thought that was it. Nope. I hear my own voice through my ears AND inside my head. It’s like hearing myself through a blown-out speaker while sitting inside a barrel. The louder I talk, the worse it is. The only level of talking that’s comfortable is just above a whisper. Chewing (especially crunchy food) and brushing my teeth are unbelievably loud, so I can forget trying to hear anyone talk while I’m eating. I’m also hypersensitive to loud noises, have tinnitus, vertigo/dizziness when bending over, and for the kicker—I can hear the muscles in my eyes move, my heartbeat, and my footsteps go boom-boom—all inside my head. At least I can’t hear my stomach digest food (some people with SCDS can).

I was supposed to have surgery in the spring, but Covid got in the way. On Thursday, I’ll have a middle fossa craniotomy which involves cutting a silver-dollar-sized hole in my skull behind my ear, moving the brain aside to be able to look down into the top of the inner ear’s semicircular canal. The surgeon will then use some of the dust from my skull incision to make a bone wax to plug both ends of the canal, and then essentially spackle the surface around it to completely seal the area. They’ll have to shave a little bit of my head on my left side, and I’ll have a bitchin’ scar. ; )  Oh, and I’m bilateral—I have the condition in both ears, but the bone is only thin on my right side; there’s no hole yet. Yay!    

I’ll be spending the first night after surgery in the ICU, move into a regular room on Friday, and if I can walk by myself without falling over, I can go home Saturday. My surgeon told me when I wake up in the recovery room, my world will be a WHOLE lot quieter. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me. Recovery is generally three weeks, with a lot of dizziness as the brain adjusts to having a plugged canal in one ear. Fortunately, Derek is still working from home, so he’ll be taking good care of me.

I’ll go early this week to have my Covid test, and on Wednesday, I’ll get the call for when I need to be at the hospital on Thursday morning.

In book news, I’m 1/3 of the way through the first draft on The Solstice Countdown (SPI Files 7). Even on my dizziest days, sitting at my desk working doesn’t bother me. My plan is to do absolutely nothing for the first week post-surgery, then get back to writing. Don’t worry, I won’t push myself too hard. We’ve moved a small desk into the bedroom, and I do some of my best writing on a notepad sitting up in bed. I’m thrilled with how the book is coming so far. You guys are going to absolutely LOVE this one.   

So, this Thursday, I would appreciate your prayers and positive thoughts for me and my surgical team. I’ll have my phone in the hospital, and if I feel well enough, I’ll post to my Twitter and Facebook accounts as to how everything went. 

Love you all, wear a mask, and stay safe!

Lisa

Isn’t it gorgeous? An new series in a new genre calls for a new cover artist. James Egan of Bookfly Design hit a home run with this cover! 

Next Tuesday, May 12, you’ll be able to buy The Entity Game in ebook and print from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Kobo. The pre-order links should go live within the next 48-72 hours. I’ll send out another newsletter with all the links once they’re live.

I’ve love thrillers with a touch of the supernatural, and the right idea finally came along with The Entity Game. This is the first book in what will be the Aurora Donati novels. I love these characters and their world, and I hope you do, too!

I’ve started The Solstice Countdown (SPI Files 7) and would really like to have it ready to go by the end of this year. After that, I’ll be diving back into the world of Raine Benares. It’s been way too long since I’ve visited. 

So for the foreseeable future, I’ll be working a rotation of three series: Aurora Donati, SPI Files, and Raine Benares. My goal is to release two books a year.   

Here’s what you can expect Tuesday from The Entity Game: 

A powerful United States senator and his aide die in their office of cardiac arrests. The next day, a second senator dies of an aneurysm. Officials declare their deaths natural causes, but the FBI fears there is something sinister happening on Capitol Hill and looks to psychometric detective Aurora Donati to investigate. Rory’s ability to get information from people or objects with a single touch uniquely qualifies her to explain the inexplicable. Only this time, she begins to wonder if she is up against forces that no one has ever encountered before.

The next attack strikes close to home and turns Rory’s world upside down. She finds herself entangled in a deadly mix of terrorists, corrupt politicians, and secretive intelligence agencies in a web of deception and conspiracy dating back to experiments performed in a Cold War-era Soviet laboratory and perfected by modern science.

Someone else is pursuing the truth: Gabriel Marshall, CIA operative, who has an agenda and abilities of his own. They find themselves locked in a deadly game, stalked by a seemingly supernatural assassin who puts Rory and Gabriel’s abilities to the ultimate test in a deadly duel. Time is running out and Rory must counter each move and play the game to its heart-stopping end in the halls of the US Capitol itself.