Sinews of the Heart is here!

Sinews of the Heart is finally available in both softcover and e-book editions! Check out this great review of Sinews of the Heart from Kris Piet, and look for updates about reviews and my blog tour on my Facebook page. You can read an excerpt from Sinews of the Heart and order the book from Budding Moon Press, the YA imprint of Storm Moon Press. It's a great story! Hey, where else are you going to find genderqueer youth, furries, a post-apocalyptic world, and big explosions all in one novel? :D

Sinews of the Heart at Budding Moon Press

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Sinews of the Heart is awesome!

Kristina Piet of Storm Moon Press wants to tell you about my upcoming novel, Sinews of the Heart. She likes it. She really likes it!

This book, quite frankly, breaks the rules. These days, people expect YA QUILTBAG fiction to basically be YA Gay fiction. Let’s face it, the rise in popularity of gay fiction in general has led to quite a number of authors in the gay romance fiction genre ‘giving a go’ at writing YA gay fiction. Is that a bad thing? Oh, hell no, it’s not! I love seeing an influx of Gay YA just as much as the next reader who wants to spread the love for GLBT to young people. But it does mean that the majority of YA books coming out deal primarily with gay characters. This book doesn’t end at that. Sinews of the Heart breaks past that barrier into not only addressing the common ‘coming out’ story arc for a character identifying non-heterosexually, but also addressing gender identity in a very raw and organic way. The main character, Nikki, is biologically male but lives as a female. Her parents fight about it, have pronoun arguments, the works. On top of that, a romance develops between Nikki and a boy, Kane, who then has to come to terms not only with his own sexual identity, but with Nikki’s gender identity, expression, and sexuality as well. Add another boy into the mix–Rory, who is secure in his identity as a gay young man–and you have just struck YA QUILTBAG Fiction gold!

Nah. To hell with gold; this is YA QUILTBAG Fiction diamond-studded rhodium. It has the potential to open eyes and minds through skillful narration, balanced storytelling, and some really amazing characters. All this from a novel starring a trans* anthrotiger in a post-apocalyptic setting! YES, please!

Wow! I'm humbled that something I wrote has touched someone like this. Sinews of the Heart will be available on September 27, and you can save by pre-ordering now.

QUILTBAG YA Fiction: You’ve Gotta Read This Book!

Sinews of the Heart at Storm Moon Press

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"Sinews of the Heart" will soon have more furriness to love!

"Sinews of the Heart" has switched publishers! Storm Moon Press originally passed on the story since one of the editors, S.L. Armstrong, felt it was more of a YA piece and at the time, they didn't publish a YA line. Well, now they do! And S.L., who liked the story very much, contacted me again about placing the story with them, with the caveat that I have to make it...longer?!? No one ever wants me to make my stories longer! How cool is that? I came up with the idea for a follow-up tale shortly after I originally wrote the story, and now I'm working on expanding the original "Sinews of the Heart."

The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world where human civilization has fallen in a war with anthropomorphs. A family of anthrotigers hiking across the Yellowstone Territory comes upon a hidden family of humans. Whether to kill the humans or let them go is a decision that has dire consequences for Nikki, a twelve-year-old anthrotiger, whose true identity her father refuses to acknowledge. It's a compelling story of coming-of-age, forgiveness, and the importance of being true to one's real self. Plus, it has furries! And now, the story will continue, where some interesting new developments will happen with the characters.

I'll post another update as we get closer to publishing the story. I still have lots of work to do! Meanwhile, go check out Storm Moon Press; you might find something interesting there! They publish LGBT-themed works, usually with SF/fantasy/horror settings. Quite intriguing! Thanks to S.L. for remembering and liking my tale so much!

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Drawing from here.

Wolf Note

My novel Wolf Note is now available in an Amazon Kindle edition! This tale is an action-filled mystery with a werewolf private eye who falls in love with a beautiful and famous operatic soprano -- and then he discovers that someone is trying to kill her!

Private investigator Griffin Thorn must find out who wants to kill opera superstar Brianna Keller. Griffin becomes Brianna’s bodyguard after an unknown assailant attacks her, and his admiration of her talent quickly turns into love for her. Secretly, Griffin is a werewolf keeping one step ahead of bounty hunters dedicated to wiping out his kind. Orphaned as a boy, Griffin took bloody revenge on the hunter who killed his parents. Griffin thwarts another attack on Brianna and, with hard-nosed FBI agent Tarrant Cobb, tries to uncover the stalker’s identity before he strikes again. Brianna learns Griffin’s secret and falls in love with him anyway, but another deadly attempt to take the singer’s life nearly kills her children. With the puzzle unsolved, Griffin realizes his violent past might destroy his dream of staying with Brianna forever. But Griffin soon learns that in life, love, and murder, nothing is ever as it seems.

There's plenty of action and romance in this one! Wolf Note will soon be available in a print edition and in other e-reader editions. Get ready for some red-in-tooth-and-claw opera werewolf action! And it's just in time for the beginning of the new season of The Metropolitan Opera! Enjoy!

Wolf Note at Amazon.com

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Have an adventure this weekend!

Need a good book to read for the Labor Day weekend? Try one of my novels, The Glasschanger's Child or Orphan Stone. The Glasschanger's Child is a contemporary fantasy with wizards and dragons, an opera-composing gryphon, and the the Greek god Pan. Orphan Stone is a science fiction adventure about a young girl battling furry pirates among the rings of Saturn. Follow the links for more details about the novels and where you can buy them. Enjoy!



Orphan Stone

The Glasschanger's Child

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"Sinews of the Heart" is coming; or, The Furries Have Inherited the Earth!

My short story/novella "Sinews of the Heart" will be published as an e-book next year by WolfSinger Publications! The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world where human civilization has fallen in a war with anthropomorphs. A family of anthrotigers hiking across the Yellowstone Territory comes upon a hidden family of humans. Whether to kill the humans or let them go is a decision that has dire consequences for Nikki, a twelve-year-old anthrotiger, whose true identity her father refuses to acknowledge. It's a compelling story of coming-of-age, forgiveness, and the importance of being true to one's real self. Plus, it has furries!

"Sinews of the Heart" is one of my favorite tales, and I'm very happy that it has finally found a home. I'll post an update when the e-book becomes available.

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Drawing from here.

Orphan Stone

My novel Orphan Stone is now available in an Amazon Kindle edition! It's a novel I first wrote a few years ago and had no success placing through traditional channels, so I decided to try the self-publishing route and see what happens. Here's the description of Orphan Stone:

Erzsébet Warren doesn't let anything get in her way. It's been just a few months since Erzsébet was made an orphan when her father murdered the rest of her family. Now she wants to do something fun, like mining diamonds in the dangerous rings of Saturn. But Erzsébet doesn't anticipate that the place is crawling with hated chimera-boys, humans who genetically alter their bodies to become part animal. Nor does she count on a ship full of vicious pirates, who not only want to steal the miners' diamonds but also have a personal grudge against Erzsi. And least of all, she never thought she'd fall in love with a chimera-boy. Erzsébet's adventures rack up no end of trouble for both the daring diamond miners and the dissipate and deadly pirates. But when pirates try to take over the huge mining station, it's Erzsébet's cunning improvisations that help the outgunned miners fight back.

Orphan Stone is a rip-roaring adventure tale with lots of drama and humor. I hope you enjoy it!

Orphan Stone is now available in a print-on-demand paperback edition (just follow the link to Amazon) and in other e-reader formats. Also, some independent bookstores have the print-on-demand paperback edition available, too. Check with your favorite book retailer!

Orphan Stone at Amazon.com

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Furries Sing & Furries Dance!

Oooooo, looky! Furries singing and dancing in a music video! I've never heard of this band but I guess they like furries. Now if I can just find an opera production using furries. Don Giovanni as an anthrowolf? Tosca with Baron Scarpia as a weasel? Anything with Renée Fleming as a gorgeous vixen?


Speaking of vixens, let's not forget the one genuine furry opera, Leoš Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen!

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P.S. I just found this page with some very cool furry art done for a production of The Cunning Little Vixen in New Zealand. Enjoy!



UPDATE: Some furry reax to the video here, including words from a couple of the fursuiters in the video! Yay!

"To nuketh the bastards or not to nuketh the bastards, that is the question."

What next, Shakespeare with furries? Say...

My Shakespeare authorship fans/detractors will enjoy this: Roland Emmerich is directing a film called Anonymous, which apparently is tacking the Shakespeare authorship question by positing that Edward de Vere, our old friend the Earl of Oxford, wrote the Bard's plays. Interesting, although how this fits in with the rest of Emmerich's films escapes me. Unless the pro-Shakespeare and the pro-Oxford camps get a hold of some awesome weapons and proceed to vaporize the earth to prove their various points. Cool!

Around the time 2012 came out, I discovered that Roland Emmerich is gay. I did not know that.

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P.S. I never thought I'd be putting the tags "Roland Emmerich" and "Shakespeare" in the same post...

P.P.S. I watched 2012 last night. It is what it is, which is to say that it's fun, but needs a shirtless Will Smith to really make it work.

Good Show, Sir!

"HOLY mother of HADES I have it! Ready? How about a big muscled LEOPARD MAN! Holding his rifle and roaaaaaaring off to one side….. YAWHAAT!?!? No I don’t want to see his leopard genitals! Put in him some futuristic combat armor, but no leggings.. his crotch is right there!!! God can only dream of how good this will be……"

OMG, this site is beautiful! Simply beautiful! Such dreadful covers! Why...someday I may finally get my own genre novel published only to see it given an atrocious cover like one of these! Maybe...*sigh!*...maybe even a cover originally created for another book! I love the description with this one, which I adore because I'm a furry and this one is just...so...BADLY done! I mean, what is that? It's got the head of a lynx and the body of...of a leopard in super-tight stretch pants?!?

Not since Animals With Lightsabers have I adored the Internet more. I dearly love thee, sweet Internet...

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h/t Andrew Sullivan