Tag: cover reveal

New horror-suspense tale CHRYSTINE’S SLEEP SOLUTION released just in time for Halloween!

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I don’t know about you, but when fall arrives, it’s not pumpkin-spice-flavored-everything I look forward to. Instead, I like to get into the Halloween mood by reading spooky stories.

If you do, too, great news! I just released an original midlength horror story titled Chrystine’s Sleep Solution.

Cover for CHRYSTINE'S SLEEP SOLUTION: a front view of a woman with her eyes peacefully closed, but in front of her mouth is a cellphone displaying a distorted, screaming mouth on its screen.

It’s about a woman who downloads a phone app to help her sleep, but…there’s something off about it.

Get the details here

or

Buy it now

Paperback only available at Amazon. Ebook available at your favorite digital retailers.

I’m very pleased how this one turned out, and I hope you like reading it as much as I did writing it!

Cover Makeover: THE BUREAUCRAT

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As one of the first short stories I published, The Bureaucrat got the best cover I could make at the time (2017). And while I still like the vibe the original acid green cover brings to this Twilight Zone-esque tale of just deserts, I thought it was time for an update that brought the human(??) element to the fore. And thanks to artist Christian Bunyan, I’ve now got a new cover that ups the creep factor by ten!

Here’s the before:

The Bureaucrat (Cover)

And the creeptastic AFTER!

Cover to THE BUREAUCRAT - A creepy office worker stands grinning with blank eyes in front of a wall of spooky blank eyes.

The Bureaucrat: An Uncanny Satire is available now in ebook (digital retailers) and paperback (Amazon).

Click here to read an excerpt here at Pixelvania Publishing.

New Fantasy Adventure release: THE CAPRAMANCER NEXT DOOR

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There goats the neighborhood!

Cover for THE CAPRAMANCER NEXT DOOR: A laughing woman wields a glowing shepherd's crook while a goat leaps through a portal overhead

Down-to-earth mage Will Schafer has her hands full moving into a new house while keeping her mischievous herd of magical goats in line. Meeting handsome gardener Rickert Nash takes the sting out of moving…until his shadowy past comes roaring back to bite him in the butt.

Now Will and the herd must step in to save their neighbor from getting mulched—but can a girl and her goats defeat a formidable hunter…or are they all about to buy the farm?

Called “a wonderful read!” by GoatsLive.com, The Capramancer Next Door is an upbeat fantasy adventure sure to leave you smiling.

Read an excerpt here at Pixelvania Publishing.

I got to thinking about how hard it is to keep goats out of places they wanted to be, and came up with this portal-generating herd.

New release! DEBUTS AND DRAGONS, a scaly fantasy romcom

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Cover for DEBUTS AND DRAGONS, featuring a green dragon wearing sunglasses, earrings, and a necklace

Though she’s not much to look at, dragon Sellafield Terrormouth never worried about snagging a mate for herself. But now that her little sister is about to debut in dragon society, Sella’s got one night to go from drab to fab. If she fails, she’ll lose her entire dowry—and quite possibly doom herself to eternal spinsterhood!

Can this plain dragon get herself a date, or is her future about to go up in flames?

Contemporary fantasy fans won’t want to miss this lighthearted look at love, friendship, and inner beauty.

Prepare yourself for crazy awesome dragon names. This sunny comedy makes a great stocking stuffer for anyone stuck in the snow and cold this time of year!

New Release and a SALE!

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Cover to THE WITCHING LICENSE. A green hand grabs a purple witch's hat against a whimsical night sky and blue moon.

Mavis Burnsides is on her deathbed when her best friend brings her a Witching License. Now she’s got magical powers—and one last night to make up for a lifetime of regrets.

By turns sassy and touching, The Witching License is a gentle tale of regret, romance, and righting wrongs.

Just in time for Halloween, a feel-good. fountain-of-youth story with a senior citizen heroine discovering her inner girl power. Fans of Cocoon will get a big smile out of this one. And it’s available in LARGE PRINT!

Read an excerpt here at this book’s Pixelvania Publishing page.

Buy the ebook from your favorite retailer here (includes Amazon).

Buy the paperback from Amazon.

In other news, one of my midlength stories got a cover makeover for its print debut! Here’s the before and after:

Out Where the Sun Always Shines (Cover) - A man facing the mountains during a rosy sunset. Out Where the Sun Always Shines (Cover) - A man in the shadows smokes a cigarette, whose smoke swirls around a woman looking wistfully off into the sunset.

Tres noir, non?

To celebrate this makeover AND four other Pixelvania ebooks debuting in paperback, the following ebooks are discounted to just 99 cents from October 1st through October 7th, 2019:

What story of mine would you like to see in paperback next? Let me know!

Happy reading!

State of the Pixelvania, August 2019

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Introduction

Like a lot of entertainment, much of story writing is an invisible process to the end audience. While I’m hard at work on projects, y’all see nothing but a silent website. I want to change that.

At the same time, I don’t want to post for the sake of posting—that would just add to the tsunami of digital clutter that’s already got us addicted to checking our devices (read: miniature slot machines). With that in mind, I’ve decide to start a semiannual post, tentatively titled “The State of the Pixelvania” where you can get a picture of what’s going on around here and what might be showing up in the future.

This semiannual post was inspired by a recent video by Christopher Barnatt at ExplainingComputers.

What I’ve Been Working On: New Stories

Last year I realized I had a fair amount of stories under Horror and Humor but not even a scant handful in Wonder. Yet here I am on a purple website, calling myself a scifi/fantasy author! So I set out this year to fill out the Wonder section of my works, starting with a one-story-a-week challenge in Feburary! It…didn’t go so well.

This was also the first year I’ve tried submitting to the magazines. It’s been a good experience, though I haven’t had any stories accepted yet! Let’s look at this year’s crop o’ stories so far. Read More …

New Year, New Story!

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Cover for DAY OF SILENCE, DAY OF SOUND: An old-fashioned radio sits alone on a vintage chair in a blurry field of tall grasses, in hues ofwhite and icy blue.

Johanna Reinhardt is alone at the outpost when it happens. The Machines have shut down, her husband is gone, and—imperceptibly, but surely—sound is disappearing from the world.

What might disappear next?

A dreamlike tale from the post-apocalypse.

Here’s an oldie-but-goodie short story to celebrate the new year.

Read an excerpt here at this book’s Pixelvania Publishing page.

Buy the eBook from your favorite retailer here (includes Amazon).

Happy reading!

The perfect last-minute (digital) stocking stuffer – MIDWINTER MAGIC

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Cover for MIDWINTER MAGIC: A stylized glowing reindeer leaps against the blue Northern Lights

Once upon a time, magic left the world for a night. It sighed back in through the scullery door in the morning with the cat, but by then, the Queen of the Northern Elves had fallen into a deep sleep, and, greatly diminished, the returned magic could not wake her.

From the author who brought you The Purrfect Christmas and A Gingersnap Cat Christmas comes an enchanting collection of three original yuletide fairy tales, written in the tradition of Jane Yolen and Ursula Vernon.

A little Christmas present from me to you. If you like reindeer, Santa Claus, elves, and mythic origin stories, you’re probably gonna dig this.

Buy from your favorite eBook retailer here (includes Amazon)

More info and excerpt here on MIDWINTER MAGIC’s Pixelvania Publishing page.

New horror novella for your Halloween reading pleasure

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Cover for THE GIRLFRIEND WHO WASN'T FROM DELAWARE - A giant hand made of blue static reaches down to pluck an apartment out of a building like a Jenga block

Apartment walls are thin.

Reality may be thinner.

Ray Belga lives in the ugliest apartment building in town—but at least it’s quiet. Until a mystery neighbor’s fridge starts acting up.

At least…Ray thinks it’s a fridge. But he’ll soon learn you can’t trust everything you hear through apartment walls…

I hope you enjoy this (slightly twisted?) story about a guy with noisy neighbors.

Buy from your favorite eBook retailer here (includes Amazon)

More info and excerpt here on THE GIRLFRIEND’s Pixelvania Publishing page.