You love the tinsel and laughter and catching up with family and friends. Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year) is awesome. But you can’t deny it’s also stressful. Have you been to a shopping mall recently? Case closed!

So what are your survival strategies?

I hoard books. I make sure I have about five set aside that are new to me, but which I’m confident I’ll enjoy. Books by favourite authors are a good bet.

I also treat the TV as a lucky dip. There are so many Christmas-themed movies, each year it just depends on what the TV programmers decide to show. Are you one of the many who has to watch a particular movie for Christmas? Is it It’s A Wonderful Life?

Sometimes, in the midst of the chaos, you just have to chill 🙂

Or You Could Heat Things Up!

Alix Nichols is heating up the holiday season with Winter’s Gift.

He’s a steely tycoon.
She’s an elite call girl.
Both have sworn off love…

When Anton and Anna cross paths over the winter holidays,

neither can deny that what they share in bed — and out of it — is truly special.

But it threatens the principle they’ve been living by for years:

Don’t trust anyone.

This tender and sexy modern Cinderella story will delight fans of Pretty Woman and alpha billionaire romance alike.

Oh, and it’s currently 99c!

Buy link:  https://www.amazon.com.au/Dragons-Treasure-Awaken-Book-ebook/dp/B0784DS6HF/

Writing Update

I’m lost to the world at the moment, so deep into writing The Ceph Sector that sometimes I don’t know what time of day it is! If I’m writing a dinner scene, for instance, I’ll think it’s that time even if I had breakfast an hour ago – yeah, writers’ brains are weird 😉

The Ceph are turning out to be awesome! I’ve been fascinated by stories of the djinn for years, and a little bit of their magic has crept into the Ceph.

Elizabeth Reid Boyd recommended The Fairy Mythology by Thomas Keightley to me and I picked up a free copy on Amazon. It had this awesome quote:

The Jinn are not immortal; they are to survive mankind, to to die before the general resurrection. Even at present many of them are slain by other Jinn, or by men; but chiefly by shooting-stars hurled at them from Heaven.

Shooting-stars hurled from heaven! Now, there’s inspiration for my space adventure.

I’m hoping to have The Ceph Sector zooming to your kindles in February.

A Quick Reminder About RAID

I’m releasing my short science fiction romance just after Christmas and putting it free for five days. There’s a whole rigmarole of why, involving Amazon’s weird rules, but it won’t be free the day it releases, so please wait until it is to pick up your copy. Hopefully, Amazon willing, it’ll be free from December 28.

No Nomad can ignore a summons from the Oracle. Their culture demands that they submit to a raiding party to find and mate their one true love.

Imprisoned and mistreated by the infamous information broker Fagan, Alexa Maven lives a life that makes the thought of love a painful lie. If she dared to dream, she’d wish for freedom and anonymity; to be alone forever.

Mikal Fforde is a captain in the United Space Marine Corps. Love is a distraction he definitely doesn’t need right now. He’s a tough fighter, a survivor, and he can’t afford the vulnerability that love brings.

But the Oracle has spoken, and two mismatched strangers are about to find their unlikely perfect match – if they survive Fagan!