Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

If You Have This Same Problem with Books...

I love to read. But reading, for me, involves one serious problem.

I hate to put a really good book down until I’ve read the whole thing. The whole thing. No matter how long it is.

Which is why, when I find a book I really want to read, my rugs don’t get vacuumed, my fridge doesn’t get cleaned, my bathtubs don’t get scrubbed and my Corgi, Emma, doesn’t get the walk in the park I promised her. (Don’t feel too sorry for her; she’s got two fenced acres to roam in right here at home.)

So I appreciate a book of good short stories. Putting a book down at the end of a chapter is hard; putting one down when you’ve finished reading a complete story is quite a bit easier.

If you suffer from this same problem, you might want to check my website, www.janalyceavery.com, on October 20th. You can already order my novel Shadowed Knight there (plus read fan comments, reviews and excerpts) but I’m also going to be offering readers a book of five romantic short stories called Seasons.

Three of these stories are pieces I originally sold to Woman’s World magazine some years ago, which, since WW only buys the first serial rights, means that I retained the right to re-publish them. (They appeared in Woman’s World before that magazine decided, mistakenly in my humble opinion, to limit its romantic short stories to 800 words. Since then, whenever I’ve checked WW’s romantic fiction, it’s always been a variation of He’s cute…she’s cute…maybe they can get together… and that’s about it. Understandable, since you really can’t do much more than that with 800 words, but not my idea of a real story.)

The stories in Seasons are considerably longer and involve the classic features of short-story fiction: multi-dimensional characters with some kind of problem they must solve. In my spring story, An Ill Wind, a woman wonders if she’s actually someone a man could love. In the summer piece, Broken Dreams, a good deed leads to unintended consequences. The autumn story, Monster Mommy, demonstrates that keeping a promise to a child may have unforeseen rewards; and in the winter story, The Ghost of Christmas Crazy, a homesick girl discovers that the Christmas spirit can be found even in a strange city. The final story is a bonus, a medieval tale called The Marsh, in which a knight in peril is rescued by a young boy who may not be what he seems.

Just to make things a little more interesting, each story is also accompanied by an illustration. (My favorite is the one for Monster Mommy.)

So…come October 20th, if you like short stories and have a few moments to spare, please stop by www.janalyceavery.com. I think you’ll enjoy Seasons and if the comments readers have sent me are any indication, you just might enjoy Shadowed Knight as well.