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Launch Day: Roses In Amber
I’ll start out with the links, in case that’s all you’re here for. :)
ROSES IN AMBER, available now at:
iTunes || Kindle || Kobo || Nook || Amazon (paperback) || & at bookstores near you! Order with title or ISBN (978-1613171363)Beauty and the Beast is my favourite fairy tale. Always has been, perhaps since I read “The Wounded Lion” in the gorgeously illustrated ENCHANTED TALES (Rand McNally, 1978) as a small child. I read Robin McKinley’s Beauty until the cover fell off, and Rose Daughter years later. Between those, I loved Gargoyles and the 80s tv series starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman; I watched the 1946 film and the 1991 one, and I read many, many versions of the story. When I learned the story we all knew was based on a 1756 French fairy tale, I read that version too, delighted to have read the ‘original’, in so far as fairy tales have definitive originals.
Except very recently, I discovered the 1756 version was adapted from a longer, more complicated and backstory-heavy version from 1740. Many, many elements are the same familiar ones we know: a wealthy family brought low, a retreat to the woods, a chance at financial redemption, a rose that wrecks everything.
But the backstories, OMG. The wicked fairy wasn’t *just* a nasty old fairy who transformed the prince for being a pill. The kingdom isn’t *just* left bizarrely bereft of its ruling family. There were all *kinds* of other things going on. There are political and sexual revolutions underlying the story. It was amazing!
I had–of course–always wanted to write a version of Beauty and the Beast myself (I mean, the actual fairy tale itself; The Negotiator Trilogy *is* a BatB story, obviously), but I’d never really known what I might be able to bring to the story that others hadn’t. And with this 1740 version of the story in hand, I all of a sudden knew what to do.
A great deal of what you’ll find in these pages is drawn from that centuries-old story. Not all of it, obviously, but maybe more than you’d think. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, because I had SO MUCH FUN!
There is a story of a beast, and a merchant’s daughter, and a curse that must be broken.
This is not–quite–that story.Amber Gryce believes in magic the way anyone does: as a thing of the past, marked now only by the long reign of an ancient queen sworn to live until her stolen son is returned to her. Such stories are romantic but distant for Amber, surrounded by family and wealth.
But like magic, wealth can disappear. Left destitute, Amber’s family retreats to a forest holding far from their city home, where Amber’s love of roses leads her into the heart of enchantment, and draws her into a retelling of the tale as old as time….
iTunes || Kindle || Kobo || Nook || Amazon (paperback) || & at bookstores near you! Order with title or ISBN (978-1613171363)
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Launch Day: Atlantis Fallen
Today is Launch Day for ATLANTIS FALLEN, first of the Heartstrike Chronicles! This is a book of my heart, with a long and sordid history; it’s undergone major revisions, and I still basically love it and hope you all will too. :)
Without further ado:
ATLANTIS FALLEN for Kindle!
ATLANTIS FALLEN for Kobo!
ATLANTIS FALLEN for iBooks!
ATLANTIS FALLEN for Nook!ATLANTIS FALLEN can also be found on Scribd and Inktera if you don’t buy from the above links. It might be available other places, too, I don’t know. :)
The Nitty Gritty:
At the moment, ATLANTIS FALLEN is an e-release only.Like everything I’m doing right now, it’s self-published. That means in order to have print copies I have to pay a book designer and cover artist for the interior layout and the cover. Right now I don’t have the money to do that, but believe you me, I want a copy of this book on my shelf as much as you do.
People have already suggested Kickstarter for a print edition, and that’s a brilliant idea that I will almost certainly be pursuing. The thing is, I’ve got the unfulfilled REDEEMER Kickstarter to finish, and I’m not comfortable running a second Kickstarter until I’ve got that done. So for now, ATLANTIS FALLEN is e-only, and I apologize to those of you I’m taunting with a new book that won’t be available in print for a while.
Oh, and for the audiophiles among us, I’m pursuing an audio book! I don’t know how it’ll pan out, but I’m workin’ on it!
Atlantis Fallen: Book 1 of the Heartstrike Chronicles A city hidden for five thousand years.
A man so ancient his early history is lost to time.
A woman who has nothing to lose…
Lorhen, oldest and most ruthless of the immortal Timeless, put aside the sword long ago for a quiet life. But peace doesn’t last forever, especially for a man whose age can be counted in epochs, and the mortal life he’s built unravels as the Keepers, a society of historians who record Timeless lives, learn that he’s been hiding in their midst.
Then an archaeologist’s claims of finding Atlantis brings back millennia-old memories, and Lorhen is drawn unwillingly into intrigues aeons in the making—and deadly enough that he may yet face the heartstrike blow that will unleash his power on the world….
Atlantis Fallen
The Heartstrike Chronicles: Book One
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Launch Day: MAGIC & MANNERS
MAGIC & MANNERS is FINALLY! OFFICIALLY! LAUNCHING! TODAY!
MAGIC AND MANNERS for Kobo!
MAGIC AND MANNERS for Kindle!
MAGIC AND MANNERS for Nook!
MAGIC AND MANNERS for iTunes!
MAGIC AND MANNERS print edition on Amazon!
MAGIC AND MANNERS audio book on Audible!Besides the above links, you should also be able to go into almost any bookstore and order a print edition in. It may be helpful to have the ISBN (9781613171059), and possibly the information that it’s available through Ingram (which is a book distributor and basically one of two companies that bookstores get the actual books from), but I know for sure bookstores in Canada and Ireland have been able to order copies in, and that it’s available if you go in to Waterstones in the UK/Ireland.
People often ask if it’s better for me if they go into a bookstore and order a book or buy it from Amazon or what. Most of the time it really doesn’t matter, but in this case, it does!
If you’re a person who buys print editions and have the ability/opportunity to go in to a bookstore and order MAGIC & MANNERS, it will notify the bookstores that I have a book out. Because this isn’t traditionally published, word of mouth is essentially my only publicity. My sales are pretty good in a lot of stores, and it’s possible that if people go in and say “CE Murphy has a new book out, can you order me a copy and consider short-ordering a few for the shelves,” that it could do a *lot* of good for this book.
This is the first book I’ve published in almost two years, and I’m really trying to get my feet back under me to re-ignite writing as a viable career. My readers–you–have kept me going, and this is a wonderful amazing step toward that.
(that sounded really professional and cool and stuff and totally fails to convey my OH MY GOD BOOK NEW BOOK SHINY PRETTY BOOK I WANT EVERYBODY TO READ IT OMG OMG AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH YOU GUYS KEEP HELPING ME MAKE THE MOST AMAZING STUFF HAPPEN OMG OMG OMG THANK YOU I WOULDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITHOUT YOU aspect of all of this. because holy carp, people, you make this happen!)
