HOORAY my next Zoe Chant story, A CHRISTMAS LIKE NO OTTER, has just gone live! Return to the small town of Virtue for an otterly adorable story of holiday cheer and a guaranteed happily ever otter! ( laughing-husky.gif )

Special thanks to Rachel G, Sharon C, Ellen M, & Bruce R, who came through with copyedit/proofreads on this thing like O V E R N I G H T because there was a sudden crunch to get it out!

For those who are unaware, Zoe Chant is a multi-author pen name, and I write ONLY the Virtue Shifters as Zoe, so, uh, the other Zoe books aren’t mine. But THIS one is and it’s VERY FUNNY :D :D :D

Love otter be easier….
Otter shifter and piano player Abe is usually pretty suave, but that was before the otterly amazing new choir director turned out to be his fated mate! His otter is so excited that Abe himself can’t get a word in edgewise. How can he impress his mate if he can’t even talk to her?

Blaire thought her new job as a choir director in Virtue would be a breeze, but the old piano player took one look at her and quit, and the new one can’t even meet her eyes! Which is just too bad, because he’s probably the most handsome man Blaire has ever seen. Why, if Abe could only make eye contact, Blaire might even be prepared to consider him a potential significant otter!

But rehearsals for the choir concert mean at least they’re together, and it’s not long before they realize they have a whole lotter more than music in common. From ice skating to hot springs, the winter holiday activities in town bring them closer and closer…right up to one last surprise that reveals itself at the Christmas concert!

A Christmas Like No Otter is a fun, fast-paced romantic comedy that’s the next best thing to taking a winter holiday! You’ll all but feel the crisp air and smell the scent of Christmas trees in this light, sweet shifter romance with a guaranteed happily ever otter.

Available now on Amazon Kindle! <3 (affiliate link!)

My taxi driver today had just bought a new electric car and was so pleased with himself that it improved my entire day.

It was a 45K car, but he got a 15K grant, so that brought it down to 30K. Then he got a 12.5K trade-in on his old car, which was obviously quite decent, but only had 4 years left on its 9 year run as a vehicle acceptable as a taxi (I didn’t know there was a limit, but there is), so he got a 45K car for 17.5K AND electric vehicles have a 12, not 9, year limit as a taxi, so he’s got a good long run ahead of him with it.

Furthermore, he’d had it 6 days as of today & had not yet had to recharge its 433 (or something; 400+ a bit, anyway) kilometer battery, BUT had been told there was a convenient fast-charging site which charged 15 quid for the 42 minute charge, which is 35 quid less than it cost to fill up his previous vehicle’s tank for 400km of distance, so he was gleefully anticipating the 35-70 euro savings per week, depending on how far his rounds took him.

FURTHERMORE he had just learned that most of the major grocery stores now have free charging sites, and as a 15 minute charge is supposed to give you 100km, he reckoned he might easily be able to keep his vehicle sufficiently charged without ever paying for it just by plugging it in during the weekly shop.

And he was delighted with its acceleration, which he took the opportunity to demonstrate on a brief stretch of clear road, and happily told me that he hadn’t actually figured everything out about it, but he was clearly having a wonderful time and it genuinely improved my entire day. :)

Hey, today really IS launch day!

Book 3 in my Dublin Driver cozy mystery series, DEATH OF AN IRISH MUMMY, is out today!

If you’re just here for the links, it’s available now on: Amazon (affiliate link) || Apple || Barnes & Noble || Kobo

Squiring a self-proclaimed heiress around Dublin has got limo driver Megan Malone’s Irish up—until she finds the woman dead . . .

American-born Cherise Williams believes herself to be heir to an old Irish earldom, and she’s come to Dublin to claim her heritage. Under the circumstances, Megan’s boss Orla at Leprechaun Limos has no qualms about overcharging the brash Texas transplant for their services. Megan chauffeurs Cherise to the ancient St. Michan’s Church, where the woman intends to get a wee little DNA sample from the mummified earls—much to the horror of the priest.

But before she can desecrate the dead, Cherise Williams is murdered—just as her three daughters arrive to also claim their birthright. With rumors of famine-era treasure on the lands owned by the old Williams family and the promise of riches for the heirs, greed seems a likely motive. But when Orla surprisingly becomes the Garda’s prime suspect, Megan attempts to steer the investigation away from her bossand solve the murder with the help of the dashing Detective Bourke. With a killer who’s not wrapped too tight, she’ll need to proceed with caution—or she could go from driving a limo to riding in a hearse . . .

Available now: Amazon (affiliate link) || Apple || Barnes & Noble || Kobo

So it turns out that the heat’s never worked properly in this house since we moved in.

Here’s the thing: the heating in Ireland is such shit that this never occurred to us as a possibility. We’ve been trained to think sleeping in gloves is just a thing you have to do sometimes.

The radiators were gurgling horribly & Ted tried bleeding them (again: this happened a few weeks ago & we eventually turned the boiler off & back on again & the heat came back, but THIS time) the whole system shut down & we were obliged to call the landlord, & not only did it turn out there were Mysterious Aspects to bleeding the radiators that hadn’t been made clear but also the hot water heater was essentially not working, except when the house heat was providing it hot water. It ALSO had a leak.

So the radiators were literally not heating the upstairs in any meaningful way EVER, & the hot water heater was not heating the water.

After the radiators were dealt with properly, the upstairs got warm for the first time ever. Then it turned out the downstairs ones had stopped working, & guess what: it was exactly the same temperature downstairs as it has been upstairs for the past 3 years. It was like there was an inversion layer.

The landlord came back & sorted out the downstairs, & was mildly dismayed that we’d been living like this all along, but I shit you not, fifteen years of experience in this country told us this was just how things worked here.

It will be the heating (and the total inability to buy a house) that drives me out of this country one day. :p

I am lying. Today is not launch day. Today is the day I remember to post about launch day. :]

But: launch day! New novella! PRACTICAL BOOTS, a story of the Torn, is now available!

These boots are made for walking…

The disappointing daughter of a Lord of the Torn, Cat Sharp was dumped in the shapeless Waste to prove herself or die. Seven years later, she’s honed the Artificer magic that saved her in the Waste, and her courier business is booming: after all, no one else can step from one location to another almost instantaneously, as Cat can with her seven league boots.

Each passage through the Waste takes her one step closer to the only thing she’s ever wanted to find…but even the Torn-born become careless at times. When Cat’s father catches up with her again, Cat must make a choice between her own dreams and an innocent’s future…or try once more to forge her own way through two worlds, neither of which she quite belongs in….

AVAILABLE NOW: Amazon (affiliate link) || Apple || Barnes & Noble || Kobo