Category: Star Bright

The Makeover is Finished!

This morning I completed and uploaded the new cover for “Lavender’s Blue”, the Septimus short story 2.1, and with that, the makeover of the Septimus Series is finished!

All the books have nice new covers, and I looked over the contents and fixed what needed fixing. In most cases, that was very little; Seventh Son was the only book that got an actual re-write (same story, better writing). Cat and Mouse got some edits, too, but the others pretty much just had a sentence fixed here or there.

I’ve had people ask why I changed the covers. The reason is that while I love the covers that Steven Novak did for me ten years ago, they don’t reflect the genre of the books as well as I’d like. Just to be clear, that’s nothing against Steven, he does great work and I still highly recommend him. It’s just that graphic designers can’t/don’t want to read every book they work on, so they go with what you tell them. And I didn’t know then what I do now, so the old covers look darker and more edgy than the stories really are; the “cozy” of Cozy Fantasy doesn’t show.

But I want readers to see at a glance what they’re in for! So, after all these years, it was time for an update, and now I have the skills to do it myself. (Yes, those covers are 100% human-made, without the aid of AI. Digital tools, yes, Generative AI, no.)

Putting borders of botanicals on your book cover is the trendy thing in Cozy Fantasy, so I thought that for once I’d go with the flow. The herbs that were the models for each book’s border came from my garden. I tried to make them match the story, i.e. have them mentioned in the book or at least fit the season it’s set in, but it wasn’t as easy as you’d think. With Star Bright, I wanted woodruff, which Uncle puts in the drink at the May Day Dance, but I don’t have any in my garden.

So Seventh Son has mint (because of mintbrew, of course), Cat and Mouse black walnut (which Cat and Nikor the librarian make ink from), Checkmate‘s is calendula or pot marigold (which flowers in summer, when the story takes place, and makes a good skin ointment), and Star Bright ended up having sage on it, because, alas, no woodruff (and we know that Cat doses her children with sagebrew when they get a sore throat). As for “Lavender’s Blue”, it was obvious!

So there you have it – one book series makeover. The new versions are all uploaded and live now; I’m waiting for the print copies of books 2-4 in the mail so I can sell you signed copies.

“Lavender’s Blue” is still free to download though! Just click here and get yourself a nice pdf.

And that’s Life, the Universe, and the updated Septimus Series! Books like having makeovers, too.

Shameless Advertising, or: A Roundup of Stories

I finally, at long last, finished a book again. (I know, right?) Just to clarify, no, it’s not a Septimus Series book, it’s a standalone. And by “finished” I mean that last week I buckled down and implemented the changes my editor, the intrepid and amazing E. L. Bates, had suggested. So now, I think, the story is finished and is the best that I can make it.

So now what? Actually, one thing I’m considering doing with this book is to send it to publishers, to see if one of them might put it out under their label. And one of those publishers I’m looking at requests in their manuscript submission form that I supply links to my web presence, but only of sites that I use to promote my work. Umm, okay. Then I guess I better do some promoting. The publisher wouldn’t want to just see posts about my cat and my stuffed bear, would they? No matter how handsome Louis and Steve are.

So, yes, in case you were wondering, my books and short stories are still out there to purchase and/or read! There are quite a number of them now. I tend to forget just how many.

There’s the Septimus stories: Seventh Son, Cat and Mouse, Checkmate, and Star Bright. In between Cat & Mouse and Checkmate, there’s the short story “Lavender’s Blue”. The books are all available in ebook (Kindle, epub, Kobo, Nook, iBooks, pdf, what-have-you), and in print (from Amazon); the short story is free to download here.

The Septimus series is what started it all. It began with a blue pottery bowl:

“Cat was ordinary—until the day a blue bowl whirled her off to a magical medieval world…
Catriona, ex-librarian, dumped by her boyfriend, is just trying to restart her life when she gets sucked into and carried off by a blue pottery bowl. Suddenly thrown into a world where she can’t move for mysteries, how is this modern town girl going to cope alone in the woods with a comatose man and a muddy baby? And there’s that hint of something sinister…”

I do have plans for more stories in that series!

The other books available in ebook and print right now are the Christmas novellas: The Twelve Days of Christmas and The Forty-Dollar Christmas.

The Twelve Days of Christmas is the story of a woman whose boyfriend mysteriously vanishes on Christmas Eve, just when some unearthly beautiful people show up in town. Can Mac get Tom back in time before the Twelve Days of Christmas are up?

The Forty-Dollar Christmas is what I call a “here-and-now” story, i.e. contemporary fiction: a tale of how Liz tries to show her neighbour and his little girl that for celebrating Christmas, it’s not the content of your wallet that counts.

Again, both those books are available on Amazon for Kindle and print, and at most other ebook vendors in other ebook formats.

As for short stories, there are quite a number of them out there right now, and most of them are available to read for free! Go over here and follow the links.

So there you have it, that is Life, the Universe, and A. M. Offenwanger Stories to Enjoy. Get reading!