Keep an eye out for the OG (otherwise known as my first novel) on sale in various ebook spots in September. So far, it’ll be available for most of the month in the US and from August 30 through September 6 in the UK.

It’s COLD HILLSIDE’s turn for the $1.99 offer. On sale August 25th on the usual sites (US, Great Britain, and Canada). And just because it’s so pretty, here’s the fabulous new ebook cover again.

While the Witch Novel is off being reviewed by my third reader, I’ve been going through my notes for the Glass World project to see if I can turn it into something that makes sense. I found a note about the stages of my writing (which must have been part of a book exercise, because one of my favourite writing-avoidance behaviours is to read books about writing). This is all still true.

1. A vague idea and optimism

2. Research, some necessary, some avoidance

3. Writing the easy bits or just the next bit

4. Despair

5. Review, research, reorganization

6. Soldiering on again…

7. Despair – Repeat

8. Brute Force

9. The End

P.S. BLOOD & CHRYSANTHEMUMS is on sale for $1.99 until August 23rd. Which I guess proves I used to be able to make this work.

Flash! August 4th! BLOOD & CHRYSANTHEMUMS is on sale for $1.99, wherever you get ebooks.

Now that’s out of the way …

As a change from book promotion, here are some vacation pictures instead. We went to Italy for two weeks in May. This was our first real travel since 2019 and our third trip to Venice, so it was a good warm-up for trying (again) to go to Spain.

We stayed in the Castello region, near the Arsenale. It was a great area, full of good restaurants, little shops with odd hours, people, dogs (and dog poop), and ordinary life.

We saw no shortage of animals, both real and imagined.

We went to our third Venice Biennale, which once again provided a wide variety of artistic experiences, from the beautiful to the baffling and everything in between. Don’t worry, I’m not going to subject you to the many, many pictures we took.

Then it was off to the Lido. Sadly, most of the resort beaches seemed to be closed. We trudged our way down to the public beach, paddled our hands in the Adriatic, and then headed back to Venice.

We spent two and half days in Bolzano, a four-hour train ride up into the Italian Alps. We were pleasantly surprised by the number of vineyards (and happily tasted the local wines) and my husband observed that his limited knowledge of German seemed more convincing than his less limited vocabulary in Italian.

Bolzano turned out to be a lovely town, with a pedestrian center full of restaurants, food stalls, and the best gelato we’d ever had. (Seriously, Gelateria Portogallo was mind-blowingly good. Go there.)

Despite the fact that the tourist board for the region brags that ‘the sun always shines’, our days there were mostly rainy and overcast. But we still managed to slog through the downpour up to Runkelstein Castle. We were rewarded by rooms of beautiful frescoes, a sleepy cat, and an amazing display of handmade musical instruments by the talented and energetic Max Castlunger. He was giving a tour and demonstrations to several wet families and enthusiastic kids who dutifully banged, tapped, and chimed on request. Ok, my husband was also happy to ‘bang a gong’ on cue.

The next day, the weather cleared enough for us to head up to the top of the Rittner horn ski resort, which involved two gondolas, a small train, and a bus. And another bus filled with students on the way back down to Bolzano.

Then it was back to Venice for one more afternoon of art and eating. Still one of my favourite places in the world.

All photos by Nancy Baker

I was asked by the good people at the book recommendation site Booklisti to put together a list on whatever I wanted. What I wanted was to talk about my favourite retellings and reimaginings of fairy tales, because that is one of the sub-genres I love the most. (So much that I indulged in it myself, with A Terrible Beauty.) I picked seven titles from authors such as Robin McKinley (twice), Tanith Lee, Catherynne Valente, and Diana Wynne Jones. Each author brought to their chosen fairy tale (from Beauty and the Beast to Koschei the Deathless to Tam Lin – also twice) their own perspective, fascinations, and rich, beautiful prose. I’ve read these books more times than I can count and I hope you find something new to delight you as well.

Most of the great offers on the new ebooks have been for the US sites, but now it’s time for Canadian and British readers. BLOOD & CHRYSANTHEMUMS is on sale for $1.99 all this week.

The new (and beautiful) ebook editions of Cold Hillside and A Terrible Beauty are on sale for $1.99 until August 2nd, wherever fine ebooks (and some not so fine ones, I suppose) are sold!

BLOOD & CHRYSANTHEMUMS ebook is on sale today (July 18) for $1.99 at all the usual places.

The new ebook edition of THE NIGHT INSIDE is on sale at Amazon and Barnes & Noble for $1.99 today (July 14th) only.

The beautiful new ebook editions are now live and waiting for you. Or your friend. Or your mother. Or your sister. Or your second cousin. Or random strangers.

Anyway, I’m very happy about it, especially as it’s a nice distraction from rewrite #3 of the Witch Novel ending.

Huzzah!