Salt Magic Skin Magic is out

Want a story that’ll make you feel better about the world?

This post tells a story that’ll give you hope. It’s my story, about my book – Salt Magic Skin Magic.

Once upon a time (a year ago) Salt Magic Skin Magic was accepted for publication by Riptide Publishing. Wow! Champagne flowed. I danced on tables. The kids got away with murder and no washing for a week.

Then, in March, things changed. I’m not going into the circumstances again, but Riptide offered authors their rights back, and I asked for mine – something I’d never imagined doing in a million years. And, God, it hurt! I’d wanted to get that book published SO BADLY.

So. No contract. I was back to being just another unknown writer with an unpublished book.

Then the roller-coaster swooped up again because author Amelia Faulkner set up a spreadsheet called ‘Authors helping Authors’ and the outpouring of support for authors leaving Riptide was incredible. People offered their services (editing, proof-reading) FOR FREE. They could easily have looked the other way, but they didn’t. I still feel warmed and humbled by the generosity that flowed my way that day.

Here are the people who gave me hope as well as actual practical assistance:

• Amelia Faulkner – who set up the spreadsheet in the first place, making it easy for generous people to offer their services and woebegone people like me to find them
• KJ Charles – my dream editor – who soothed my troubled brow, edited my book FOR FREE, gave me an awesome quote for the blurb, and answered a million questions about self-publishing
• Clare London – who proofed the book FOR FREE and answered more of my silly questions (NB – Clare has the eyes of an eagle; any errors you may find in the book are entirely my own)
• Jordan L. Hawk – who supplied a magnificent quote for the blurb, and who made my day week month OK, year by saying Salt Magic Skin Magic gave them a book hangover
• Rachel Maybury from Signal Boost Promotions – for FREE promo assistance.

I also want to thank:

• Jackie North – who loves Victorian England as much as I do, and who has been unfailingly supportive ever since she read the first draft of Salt Magic Skin Magic
• The writers of the New Zealand Rainbow Romance Writers group – including Anne Barwell, Amanda Whitehouse and Gillian St Kevern – who listen to my nonsense on Facebook and give great advice
• The Write Wellington group – who are honest and kind – a winning combination for those of us who want to be better writers
• My beta readers – who generously read my book and bravely told me what they thought about it
• All the reviewers and book blogs who agreed to read my book or give me FREE advertising
• And, most of all, thanks to Matt – who commiserates and celebrates in all the right places, who understands my glee at writing an octopus into a sex scene, and who talks about magic late into the night.

Thanks everyone – you’re the best! I couldn’t have done it without you!

Oh, and if you’re interested in the actual book, Salt Magic Skin Magic is also a tale of hope. And love, sex and magic. And winning through when everything looks hopeless.

It features:

• Dark deeds
• Mysterious curses
• An aristocrat who is not what he seems
• A magician whose sex life melts windows
• Unexpected hedgehogs
• A happy ending.

Salt Magic Skin Magic is out now (Warning: This m/m romance is for ADULTS ONLY. It contains graphic sex scenes and references to possible suicide)

Buy now on Amazon.com 

All buy links: https://books2read.com/u/b5rXzO