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Broken Melody – Excerpt (Chapter 11)

Excerpt Book

Orrell’s office was located in what Selissa had privately named ‘the Barracks’. The buildings carried absolutely no resemblance to your typical military facility as they were as grand and luxurious as any other building frequented by Var’nori’s mages, but since they were home to the city’s battlemages and contained sparring yards and other areas dedicated to physical training, Selissa could overlook the shiny walls and the lack of dried blood and sweat on the floorboards.

Selissa acknowledged Kindra with a nod as she passed the young mage, then threw Orrell’s door open without knocking. Seeing as she had been with them during the fight against the Horsemen, Kindra didn’t even bat an eyelash at this scene. The first time the mercenary had barged into the office of the captain unannounced, Orrell had reacted like any good soldier and knocked her unconscious with a spell before he realized what was happening, so the only thing that really surprised the mages in the Barracks was that Selissa kept doing it.

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Broken Melody – Excerpt (Chapter 6)

Excerpt Book

Selissa had no time to answer. Grabbing Rowan around the waist, she threw both of them out of the way as something came barreling past. As she tried to keep the stumbling Rowan from falling, Selissa took another look, because she couldn’t possibly have seen what she thought she had.

“Is that a Hellhound?” she muttered, but with all the screaming currently going on in the hall, her question drowned in the noise. 

“What’s going on?” Rowan demanded, clinging to Selissa to keep her footing. 

“I have absolutely no idea,” Selissa said honestly and pushed the other woman against the wall. “Stay here. Try not to look tasty.” 

What?!” But Selissa had already left her, dodging between the panicking guests and running toward what, undeniably, looked like a rampaging Hellhound. 

Who the hell let a demon in here? Selissa thought frantically. Admittedly she didn’t have that much experience with fancy banquets, but she hadn’t expect the entertainment to be quite this unconventional.

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Broken Melody – Excerpt (Chapter 2)

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Addressing Darnell, she started counting off on her fingers. “So, no talking about celestial possession, no offending anyone important, no showing up wearing raggedy clothes—”

“No punching people,” Darnell said.

“—and no punching people. Anything else?” Selissa said.

“Be in the Great Hall by six tonight, and just make sure not to be yourself for the next few hours,” Darnell said as he headed for the door.

Selissa felt almost touched by how well the senior mages knew her after just a few months of her staying in their city. She was certain no one else got a personal visit from an archmage to make sure they didn’t cause an international incident before the aperitifs were served.

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Cover Reveal – Broken Melody

Broken Melody Michelle Louring Cover

As promised, here you have the cover for my upcoming book Broken Melody.

As it’s the fifth in the Angel’s Voice series, it obviously matches the covers of the other books. We’re just going orange this time.

Broken Melody Michelle Louring Cover

It was pointed out to me at a convention that I had the colors of all the Hogwarts houses, except for Hufflepuff, and several Hufflepuffers (Hufflers? Puffers…? I’m not sure what they call themselves) found this completely unacceptable. However, I did not actually have a yellow version of the artwork, so I’m hoping orange will do.

(I checked my own set of Harry Potter books – there’s no yellow book either, but there ARE blue, green, red and orange…)

I’m quite sure I have my arguments in order if I get cornered at the next convention. I can hear you laughing, but geeks – even the nice ones – are surprisingly fierce when they feel wronged. One memorable game of World of Warcraft Trivial Pursuit once led to me getting beaten up by prop weapons made from thermoplastic and I have been tackled by cosplayers more times than I’d like to think about.

I bet you thought this post was about a book cover, huh? But nope, it’s really about why I wear footwear suitable for running when I sell books at conventions…

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The Satisfaction From Finishing a First Draft

Broken Melody Draft

Yes, you read that right. I finished the first draft of my next book, Broken Melody.

We can all agree that the world is horrible right now, right? It’s been nearly impossible for me to come up with something positive to write about, but I’ll allow myself to be proud of my productivity while everything around us went crazy.

This book was written at record speeds for me. Both Quiet Whisper and Ghostly Scream, the previous books in the series, took embarrassingly long to finish, so when I started Broken Melody in November last year, I honestly hadn’t expected it to be done in 2020, much less in the first half of the year.

Of course I still have a lot of revising and editing to be done, but if I get off my ass we’re looking at a summer 2020 release, and at the very latest it should be out in autumn.

But I’m not sitting idle. I’m already hard at work on the sixth book in the series, which will be called Eerie Song. I’m not letting this sudden writing spree go to waste, so hopefully I can crack out several chapters before I run out of steam. It’s weird writing this book at this time, though, seeing as one of the main plots revolve around a contagious disease… I tend to use fiction to escape reality, but right now it feels like I should be taking notes while watching the news…?

But let’s forget about Corona for a while.

(But do still wash your hands!)

I’m planning to reveal the cover of Broken Melody next week and hopefully share some excerpts as I make my way through the first round of editing.

Unless, of course, I hate everything. In which case you will just hear the sound of distant screaming.

 

Broken Melody Draft