Not Above The Law, the 7th book in my Cole Wright series is available for preorder now. Due out on June 20th. It will be available in both paperback and hardback then too.
I have another Cole Wright short story, “Stillness”, just about prepped and ready to go. I should have that up here to read for free for a week or two before Not Above The Law comes out. You know, like a promotional tool, but it’s a free read for a while, so drop by around the middle of June for that.
Of course, if you’re hungry for Cole Wright short stories, remember that the first collection No Lack of Courage is available now in ebook and print. Link here. It’s a fine collection of stories, if I do say so myself. Something for everyone. Well, everyone who likes action thriller mystery short stories.
The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 7, edited by Allan Kaster is available for preorder now – out on June 16th. I’m honored to have my novella “Goldie” included in the pages. Talk about amazing company. Look at that contents page! Copied directly from Amazon:
An unabridged collection spotlighting the best hard science fiction stories and novellas published in 2022 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster.
“The Lichens” by Nina Allan— A 22nd century botanist asks a teacher in Scotland, at the time of Culloden, for help with her research.
“Beneath the Surface, a Womb of Ice” byDeborah L. Davitt— A biochemist involved in the search for underground water on Mars finds refuge in the mechanics of science.
“A Stone’s Throw” byGregory Feeley— Romance burns hot amidst the cold moons of Neptune.
“The Wine-Dark Deep” bySheila Finch— A cephalopod researcher discovers petroglyphs on the walls of a deep underwater cave.
“Cloudchaser” by Tom Jolly— A collector of rare artifacts hides his valuables on darkworlds.
“The Ploughshare and the Storm” byGwyneth Jones— Post-humans find a time capsule on Europa.
“Nonstandard Candles” byYoon Ha Lee— A cartographer and her apprentice map the outer darkness of space.
“Timekeepers’ Symphony” byKen Liu— The colonization of the cosmos transforms humanity’s sense of time.
“Maryon’s Gift” by Paul McAuley— Set in the author’s Jackaroo series, monks fight to keep a newly discovered pristine world free of humans.
“Goldie” bySean Monaghan — Scientists learn a lot about themselves while studying the ecosystems of an alien planet.
“The Abacus and the Infinite Vessel” by Vikram Ramakrishnan— A scientist recalls the struggles of her and her mother after immigrating to Mars.
“I Give You the Moon” by Justina Robson— A history student yearns for a dose of reality in an AR-immersed future.
“The Difference Between Love and Time” by Catherynne M.Valente — A woman has a relationship with the space-time continuum that’s a bit different than most of us.
“Critical Mass” — An avant-garde artist, past his prime, discovers his works are being vandalized.
“Communion” — A pilot is caught in a life and death struggle between his ship’s AI and an alien microbe after crash landing on an ice moon.
Talk about imposter syndrome. There are people there I’ve admired and idolized for years. If only I could write like them! This is another ‘knock me down with a feather’ moment.
I can’t wait to get my copy and immerse myself in all these wonderful universes.
It’s been a little while since my last post here. Travel and writing and whathaveyou slowed that all down a little. There are snippets of news about publications, some of which I may have mentioned before, but I’ll start with a a brand new one – Aelonee – a novella/long short story that’s out now.
I’m fascinated by hunter-gatherer culture and the missteps of farming and so on that have led us away from simplicity into the world we have now. I often wonder what it will be like for future interstellar explorers to encounter those kinds of societies, and the moral gray areas around all that.
I do not claim to be an expert on indigenous cultures, and the more I read, the more I discover holes in my knowledge, and the more I want to learn.
And all that said, I hope that Aelonee is an entertaining and engaging tale.
Cara Silmar’s lifelong obsession researching the indigenous culture of Aelonee’s people, the Saesse, leads her deeper and deeper into a world she still barely understands.
A new arrival and an old friend throw Cara’s work into disarray, forcing her to consider everything.
Or toss it all away.
A deep space adventure story with a heart.
___
Wonderful cover illustration by PlanetFelicity from Dreamstime.
Available now as a paperback, $9.99, and an ebook, $3.99. Link here.
If you like the idea, my story A Cultural Exchange deals with similar themes – human researchers struggling with indigenous culture.
Arriving in the deep alien forests of Corrul, Tim Maxter and his crew hardly expect instant hostility from the locals.
Sixty light years from Earth to find someone pounding on the spaceship’s door. Welcome to a planet filled with surprises.
Surprises that will cut Maxter to his core.
In other news, I have a story coming out in the July/August Asimov’s and a reprint in Allan Kaster’s The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 7 out in June.
I have a blast writing my Captain Arlon Stoddard Adventure novels. Book 9 is now up for ebook ($5.99) preorder (available April 20th), and immediately if you want the paperback ($16.99).
On his last day alive, Gus Caleb sits alone in a bar. Quiet place. No problems. Until problems show up.
Called to the Colston Ring, an alien artifact thousands of years old and inhabited by generations of human colonists, Captain Arlon Stoddard and his crew find the local authorities in disarray. Attempting to decode the background to a rash of strange disappearances makes the job near impossible.
When the crew begin uncovering the mystery, the things they find might just change everything for the millions of inhabitants of the ring.
More than anyone knows.
A Captain Arlon Stoddard novel that pushes the series into new directions. A must for fans and great place to jump in fresh.
In other news, book 10 Tramp Steamers has been written and copy-edited and is now just awaiting final formatting and last-minute tinkering. That will be out in October.
Not Above The Law, book 7 in the Cole Wright Thriller series will be out on June 20th, and available for ebook preorder, again $5.99. It will be in paperback too. More news on that to come. I should have a Cole Wright short story up for the month, free to read here. Check back on that in June.
Speaking of Cole Wright short stories No Lack of Courage, the first collection of stories is out now. Available as an ebook ($6.99), and as a trade paperback ($15.99) and hardback ($19.99).
Thanks for reading. I appreciate your eyes. More news soon.
My Cole Wright series is now at six novels, with the seventh due in July (more on that in another post). Kevin J. Anderson mentioned in a seminar I was attending that most series don’t take off until book six. Maybe that’ll be book seven for me (or eight, or nine, grin – yes I will keep writing them).
Through 2022 each time I released a new Cole Wright novel, I also put out a short story, as an ebook, a print book and, for a limited time, free to read here on the website.
There was also a novella Cold Highway, and a limited free story with that. That’s enough stories for a collection, I figure. Even though releasing a collection kind of effectively kills the sales of those individual stories. It’s nice to see them gathered together like this.
ebook $6.99 (preorder for March 20th), paperback $16.99, hardback $21.99 (both available now)
Contents:
Dark Fields
Schedule Interruption
The Forest Doesn’t Care
One Little Broken Leg
The Handler
Cardinals
A Steep Climb
What Do You Say Gus?
Cold Highway
Probably a good time to mention that the seventh novel in the series is almost out for preorder, for release in June.
More news on that soon.
Then there’s other writing happening. The next Captain Arlon Stoddard novel Tramp Steamers has been copyedited and proofed and we’re looking at scheduling that for October, though the next Karnish River Navigations novel Rorqual Saitu is complete, just awaiting those edits. We were hoping to have that out in August, but we might switch those around.
And then with the day-to-day writing, I’m deep in the heart of a new book which started out as, I thought in my naivety, a short story that might break 5000 words (think twenty pages) and is now somewhere north of 30,000 words. Yes, it will be another novel. This is good news for fans of my Morgenfeld Saga, on which nothing has happened for a few years (busy with other series as you see above) – the new book is tentatively titled The Wintermas Paintings and might even be out before the end of the next year.
At the risk of extending that naivety, I thought I’d pop in the draft of Chapter One below for any who might be interested. This is raw, remember, not tinkered with, not copyedited, not even proofed. But it might still give a feel for where this book is going.
Art not final – just an ai version of what it thinks of Morgenfeld’s Tower of Bats.
The Wintermas Paintings
Chapter One
Despite the size of the space, the air in the old cavernous hall was musty and damp and thick.
Jason Trone shivered, pressed up to one of the windows. The glass was cold, and from somewhere came angry bellows.
Someone shouting his name.
Far off for now. He had a moment.
Jason sat on a low wooden bench seat. It was hard and had once been polished to a fine shine. The lustre was long gone, and the vanish was cracked and pitted and discolored. Probably oak, with a strong grain and a few knots. The legs were still strong.
Lying on the bench were the spoils of his plunder. Trinkets and baubles mostly. Two iron necklaces with gold plating that was already wearing off. Some glass sapphires and emeralds set in brass brooches. The pins on two were snapped. A pair of pearl earrings that might have been genuine, but they wouldn’t fetch much.
He scooped them back into his soft leather satchel. It had been a gift from his grandmother and wouldn’t she be disappointed now with the use he was putting it to.
Jason sighed.
The windows behind stood thirty feet high. They hadn’t been cleaned in decades. A dust patina lay across them, and bright green lichens spread on some of the panes, with darker green mosses looking lush and vibrant in edges and corners of the framing.
Jason wiped at one of the windows, removing just enough dust to be able to see through. The next part of the building stood about forty feet away, and he was about level with the edge of the roof. There were rows of windows, leading down three, no four, stories. The brickwork was festooned with dead vines, as if someone had cut the poor plant off at the roots.
An orange cat strolled along the parapet–the building’s walls rose higher than the roof, so there were gutterings hidden behind. The cat stopped and turned to lick at its side, stripes showing and tail flicking.
If Jason could get around to where the cat was now, then that would give him more options. The question was how to reach it.
Looking over the hall again, Jason marveled. It would have been quite impressive back in its day.
The vaults of the ceiling was a good forty feet from the wooden floor. The remains of chandelliers hung, sad and drooping.
Across from the windows there was a long mezzanine balcony, rather than a wall. Stiff plaster pillars still showing signs of their original gilding held the floor in place, and the railing was complex and twisted. Probably wrought iron. It had once been painted white, but now the only remaining paint was a few chips, and rust showed.
Perhaps it had been a ball room, or even a throne room. Perhaps there had been huge thick woollen curtains over the windows and where he sat now had been occupied by a stage. There might have been performances held of Crespin’s The Draper’s Revenge, or any number of Peart’s complicated plays. Or chamber quartet shows.
Jason closed his eyes a moment, imagining the hall filled with chairs, the audience chattering away until a master of ceremonies stood at the stage front and cleared their throat.
Another bellow from the distance brought him out of his reverie.
Closer.
What he hadn’t figured on, when he began fleeing with his purloined jewelery, was getting chased by constabulary with the mindset of zealots. That, with finding his escape route blocked, had thrown him into disarray.
Probably shouldn’t have even taken this moment to catch his breath.
Jason scooped the pauper’s jewels back into his satchel. One missed and fell to the floor. One of the faux-sapphire brooches. It glass jewel glinted with a fabulous blue.
With a quiet curse, Jason slipped off the bench and reached around for the jewel. An big black spider scuttled away. Jason caught a glimpse of its tunneled web, leading back from a hole beneath the window framing.
As he stood, he heard another bellow.
“Jason Trone! Stay right where you are.”
The voice echoed around the hall.
Turning, Jason saw a hefty officer just at the entry door at the far end.. Dressed in a dark blue uniform with gold buttons and brocades. His hat was slightly askew and his mustache was thick.
Another officer came up behind him. A woman. Smaller, with narrowed eyes and an angry mouth.
“Stay right there,” the male officer said. “You’re nicked.”
Jason tucked the flap of his satchel in.
“Don’t think about it son.” The officer took another step.
Jason slung the satchel over his shoulder.
“Get on your knees,” the female officer said, coming around, drawing her baton.
Jason ran. He sprinted right at one of the old plaster pillars.
My novella “Goldie” from the January/February 2022 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction is a finalist in annual Asimov’s Readers’ Poll Awards. Amazingly this is actually my third time as a finalist for this award, following “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles” and “The Molenstraat Music Festival“.
When they put up the finalists lists, Asimov’s also make the stories and poems available to read online for a limited time – see the full page of finalists here, and the the direct link to “Goldie”.
Nice to see Dominic Harman’s cover illustration for “Goldie” as a finalist in the Best Covers category. Dominic captured Goldie herself so well that I was stunned when I received my copies of the magazine. I’d spent a lot of time with Goldie over the course of a year. The novella was a big work and there was a lot of back and forth with Sheila Williams, the Asimov’s editor in getting it right for publication (thanks Sheila!). I was surprised by my own feelings when I saw her so gorgeously realized right there in front of me. Thanks Dominic! Good luck with the award.
And good luck to all the finalists, though of course fingers crossed for me.
Dead Ringers, book 9 in my Captain Arlon Stoddard series is available on pre order with an April 20th release – universal book link here
More will come closer to the time (though I will be away from the net on a research trip on the lead up to release day).
I will say now, though, that I’m excited about this one. Nine books now in the series. Who’d have thought, huh?
And, as I type this, I’m working on Tramp Steamers, the tenth book.
I also wanted to mention briefly the wonderful cover by Algol (licensed through Dreamstime) – I actually licensed this years back for a different story. A story I hadn’t written at the time. I loved the image and I grabbed it, and wrote a story based on it, thinking just to indie publish it. But then, I sold the story to a magazine, so that locked it up for a while (generally when you sell – license – a story, part of that is a period of time when it’s exclusive to the magazine, fair enough, they paid for that).
Anyway, in the interim, I’ve just never got around to publishing the story as a standalone (goofing off, I guess, since, you know, apparently I’m a slouch when it comes to putting stories and novels up indie and really should be getting more of them out), but I still hold the license on the image.
Then I wrote Dead Ringers and it was really different and high-concept and stuff like that and ultimately I was struggling to find cover art that fitted the story. Then I remembered I had this. It fits this story well, it’s dynamic and energetic and conveys the action. So here it is.
More soon – a blurb and other details on price and so on. But you know, we do have until April 20th until it’s out.
Liquid Machine, Book 6 in the Karnish River Navigation series (though actually the ninth book to come out) will be out on February 20th, but can be preordered now.
Liquid Machine – blurb
An easy minder job, watching a dignitary’s child, should be a simple payday for Flis Kupe and Grae Sinder. Sometimes their little investigations business needs the peace and quiet. Sometimes it needs the money.
But when the job turns sour, Flis and Grae might just find themselves in the firing line.
A Karnish River Navigations novel that changes everything.
Why, you ask, is this book 6 in the series, but the ninth to come out? Well, it’s one of those series that can be read in any order, and, it turns out, I’m writing it in any order. I started this when I was a younger writer, and the first book was titled Arlchip Burnout and, naively I thought that was neatly alphabetical, why not carry on? (see Toby Litt’s alphabetical series).
So then, Canal Days and Eastern Foray and so on.
But it turned out that titles came to me from different places in the alphabet. Tombs Under Vail came out long before Eastern Foray. In fact, Fantastic Fiction lists them by publication year (fair enough) rather than alphabetically:
Karnish River Navigations
Arlchip Burnout (2015)
Night Operations (2016)
Canal Days (2016)
Guest House Izarra (2016)
Persephone Quest (2017)
Tombs Under Vaile (2018)
Eastern Foray (2019)
Jackpot Kingdom (2022)
Reading order would be
Arlchip Burnout,
Canal Days,
Eastern Foray,
Guest House Izarra,
Jackpot Kingdom,
Liquid Machine
Night Operations
Persephone Quest
[Rorqual Saitu]
Tombs Under Vaile
[W… X…]
[Y… Z…]
You’ll see those three titles there in parentheses/brackets – [ ] – these three are still to be written. I will be embarking on Rorqual Saitu possibly as soon as next month, so it might even be out later this year.
Then, the challenge I seem to have set for myself of coming up with the WX and YZ titles. And good stories to roll around under those. Humph. I suppose that I do like a good challenge.
NB, Post updated June 2023 – First chapter of story only here now –
STORY NOW AVAILABLE AS A STANDALONE PAPERBACK AND EBOOK – HERE.
Also (and probably a better bet) available in the collection No Lack of Courage – HERE – which has all the Cole Wright stories from 2022.
A little slow off the mark with this… call it the end of the year blues. Mostly I like to have a Cole Wright short story up free to read in the first week of the month when a Cole Wright novel is coming out. This time, I missed that by a wide margin – Zero Kills, book 6 in the series, has already been out for a few days now.
The idea with a free story on the website here is to promote the upcoming title and the series as a whole. Since I’m kind of goofy with that whole marketing thing, sometimes pieces fall by the wayside. Social media? Advertising? Up to date website? Email list? What’s all that?
“A Steep Climb” as it turns out, was actually the first Cole Wright short story I wrote. When I was getting a feel for the character. It was fun coming back to it at this point (and making a couple of important changes) and cool to let it out into the world. I’ll leave it free here for a week or two. Maybe longer.
More Cole Wright news soon – an update on Zero Kills (you know, promotion), a little news on book 7, which has been drafted and as such is in the machine to get up to scratch to be publishable, and on a collection of all the Cole Wright short stories so far, including the novella.
A Steep Climb will also be out soon as an ebook and in paperback – priced as usual at $2.99 and around $5.99.
Enough of my waffling on – here’s the story. STORY NOW AVAILABLE AS A STANDALONE PAPERBACK AND EBOOK – HERE.
Also (and probably a better bet) available in the collection No Lack of Courage – HERE – which has all the Cole Wright stories from 2022.
A Steep Climb – blurb
Hitching a ride, Cole Wright finds himself listening to tall tales. He meets some remarkable people on the road.
When the driver suggests a detour to a beautiful overlook, they find more than they expect. People dressed and ready for a ball.
But they have other things on their mind.
Cover illustration by Dek257 | Dreamstime
A Steep Climb
Chapter 1
Delle Brodie climbed the steep face of the grassy slope, nursing her twisted ankle, watching the rage of angry waves below.
There were rocks there, at the base. Old granite or basalt or something. The kind of rock that sat implacable against the ocean’s onslaught for millions of years. Or against the impact of a boat’s hull.
Above the rock, the grassy slope was something she had to cling to. Maybe mountain goats or bighorn sheep could traverse it easily, but for a reasonably fit woman like herself, it was still a struggle.
Unnerving, even.
The grass was crisp and dry. The blades crackled underfoot and in her hands as she grasped at them. Some came away in her fingers. Hopefully the root mass was tougher. Otherwise, her urgent traverse might dislodge something and send a whole volume of it down into the Pacific. Her with it.
Back down with the debris of Hibiscus, her boat.
Insects buzzed around. Hornets, maybe, or bees. Despite the dryness of the landscape, there were still weedy flowers around. The smell was a heady mix of dusty earth, pine and a mess of floral scents.
If you could bottle it, you’d make a killing selling it at state fairs.
The sun beat down on Delle. Late September in Oregon you’d think it would be more temperate. There had been some fires a year or two back, racing up through parts of this countryside. Relentless and without mercy. Times were sure getting hotter.
Still, at least the sun would be setting soon. It might have been six PM already. Maybe later. On the boat, time hadn’t seemed to matter so much.
Somewhere south of Portland, north of Crater Lake National Park, one of her favorite places. Amazing that a lake could be so deep–deepest in the country–but only be accessible at the top of a mountain. Stunning, summer or winter.
It would be a whole lot better there right now, than here.
She was wearing running gear, which was a good thing. Tights, Nikes, a wicking, long-sleeved Ladbrook top. Black with bright colors–pinky-crimson on the upper half of the top, and the same color highlights along the leggings.
Better than if she was in jeans, sandals and some old baggy sweater.
She was in good shape, for her age. Pushing forty. She ran five miles a day, put in a couple of regular weekly sessions at Stone’s Gym in Tacoma hefting weights and pulling the oars on a rowing machine.
Delle stopped and took a breath. The slope had to be sixty degrees. Math had never been her strong suit. Ask her to pick the chords in a song and she could do that easy. Listen to something once, then play it on the piano no problem.
But angles and square roots and even multiplication baffled her.
Honey, her mother had said right through school, Music is just math.
Well, she got that. All the notes relate, one to the other. That was easy. But when you had to look up the cosine of an angle to figure out how long the side of a triangle was, well, that just lost her.
And why was she thinking about that now?
As if poor math skills were something to worry about when her boat was wrecked, she was stuck here scrambling up some wasteland into who knew where?
Another glance down–didn’t they say don’t look down?–and she could see that she was actually making progress.
She didn’t remember scaling the rocks. Just being thrown into the water, then she was here on the slope. Some survival instinct taking over. The conscious, memory-forming part of her brain shoved aside as something took over to get her away from those waves and out of the water.
A plunge through the water–she was still wet–and a scramble up the rock face. She had some cuts on her fingers and the left knee of her leggings was torn, the skin beneath scraped.
She stopped for another breath. Impossible to tell how far the slope reached. It curved back away from her.
It was tiring. And already she’d had to deal with the broken steering on the boat.
Hibiscus was a forty-foot fiberglass cutter. At least, she had been. Now she was just jetsam, with the mast bobbing in the waves, the keel sitting at the bottom of this little cove.
Her own fault, really. It was her father who’d been the sailing enthusiast. He’d gifted her the boat in his will.
He’d tried to share a lot of his enthusiams with her. Taking her to Jayhawks games, teaching her to shoot at the local range, watching bad fifties science fiction movies. Some of them were really terrible.
Maybe it was some desire to honor his name, to take the boat out. Maybe it was something clouding her judgement.
She’d been out on the boat plenty of times with him, from when she was maybe ten and he’d come into the money to purchase it.
He made it look easy. Adjust the sheets, work the tiller, change the sail configuration.
The last five years it had sat almost idle–just occasional rentals that helped pay the hospital bills–while he made noises about beating his cancer. Right up until the last day.
I’ll lick it, you hear me? I will.
Sure Dad.
Delle climbed on. Maybe it wasn’t too much farther. And the slope definitely seemed to be growing less steep. Something darted away through the grass to her right. Maybe a mouse. Maybe a small snake.
She should know more about the area’s wildlife, really.
The slope evened out. The grass was more vibrant and strong. Soon the slope was shallow enough that she could stand and walk upright.
The tips of trees showed farther up. Some pieces of litter were caught in the grass in places. Burger wrappers, plastic bottles.
The slope changed not far ahead. An edge to it. The grass scruffier, a low fence made from fat round pieces of wood. When she reached it though, the fence was higher than it had seemed. More like three feet high, with wire mesh between the posts.
Beyond, there was a gravel area, with tall pines behind. The scent of them was strong.
A black Cadillac was parked in the middle of the gravel area.
With a man standing at the open driver’s door. Just watching her.
Chapter 2
Cole Wright sat in the passenger seat of the rickety old Ford, listening to the driver talk about his time in the marines. Nice guy, though perhaps getting on a bit to still be driving, especially at the speeds he was doing. Staying within the posted limit, but the twists and turns didn’t lend themselves to the aggressive mode at all.
….
COMPLETE STORY NOW AVAILABLE AS A STANDALONE PAPERBACK AND EBOOK – HERE.
Also (and probably a better bet) available in the collection No Lack of Courage – HERE – which has all the Cole Wright stories from 2022.
Thanks for reading a little of “A Steep Climb”. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did (after all, this is marketing, right), check out the other stories and novels in the series on the Cole Wright page on the website here. Ebooks, paperbacks and even hardbacks (of the novels). Does anyone want audiobooks? Seems as if lately the AI revolution is making that a little more cost effective (as expense, I suspect, of numerous skilled voice artists – that’s kind of scary). Maybe I should wander down that path for a little while.
Again, thanks. Feel free to comment, even just to say hi.
A trip north of the border takes Cole Wright into the heart of snowbound Canada. Friendly people, vast distances, tough vehicles, isolation.
When a breakdown looms, Wright finds himself caught in the white, compacted landscape. A road thirty feet wide, hemmed in by the piled up ridges left by snowploughs. And an endless forest that could hide just about anything.
Unfriendly territory. Dangerous places.
A Cole Wright novella that focuses down on a single moment where the slightest error could be his last.
Available now as an ebook, $3.99, and in print $7.99/$10.99 – Link here.
It’s been a big year for my Cole Wright character, from the first short story “Dark Fields“, and the first novel The Arrival, we’ve put out a bunch more novels and stories, and now, the first novella. This has been a labour over the last several years to get these up and running. The sixth novel Zero Kills will be out in December (available for preorder now), and I’m hard at work on the seventh right now, and hoping to have that out around May next year. More on that as the time approaches.
Next year we’ll be putting some of the novels together into box sets – that’ll be two box sets, of books 1 -3 and of books 4-6. We’ll also have a collection of all the short stories, and include Cold Highway in there too. And some bonus content that we’re still tinkering with.
On his last day alive, Gus Caleb sits alone in a bar. Quiet place. No problems. Until problems show up.
My novella “Goldie” from the January/February 2022 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction is a finalist in annual Asimov’s Readers’ Poll Awards. Amazingly this is actually my third time as a finalist for this award, following “
Dead Ringers, book 9 in my Captain Arlon Stoddard series is available on pre order with an April 20th release – 
Liquid Machine – blurb
A Steep Climb – blurb
A trip north of the border takes Cole Wright into the heart of snowbound Canada. Friendly people, vast distances, tough vehicles, isolation.