Tag: All the Whys of Delilah's Demise

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Mid-Summer Update

The Reading Room at the British Museum

Hope everyone’s July is going well! It’s been very hot, rainy, and humid here in the Twin Cities.

The above picture is of the Reading Room in the British Museum in London. I took it back in May, when we visited family in the U.K. The museum, as always, was very crowded. Despite the sign, there’s no reading allowed in the Reading Room, but it’s a huge domed space with a grand ceiling and a calm, bookish vibe and I was happy to peek in.

The ceiling of the Reading Room.

Publishing Update

THAT MURDER FEELING, the series opener that I’ve been working on for a while now, has a publication date! The book is in the copyediting stage and the plan is for it to come out right after the New Year, on January 13, 2026.

Here’s the short pitch: To crack his first murder case and save his childhood friend, a small-town 1980s PI must trust his extraordinary ability to see emotions as living gardens. A whodunit with a cosmic twist.

More details next month. Stay tuned!

Backlist News

My near-future mystery/thriller All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise is on Barnes & Noble’s list of Hidden Gems: Unmissable Indie eBooks. The book is currently on sale on Nook for $2.99, so it you haven’t read it yet, it’s a good time to pick it up.

What I’m Reading

I have three books to recommend.

Stuart Turton’s The Last Murder at the End of the World. A standalone novel. This one is hard to describe. As promised in the title, there is a murder, but it’s more of a sci-fi novel than a traditionally structured mystery. A weird and unconventional whodunit—my favorite kind of read.

Cascadia’s Fault by Jerry Thompson. Non-fiction. The subtitle says it all: The Coming Earthquake and Tsunami that Could Devastate North America. Thompson digs into historical and geological evidence of the fault that lies 30 miles offshore on the West Coast. I learned enough about plate tectonics and wave heights to make me uneasy the next time I happen to find myself in Seattle, but the tone of the book itself is not one of panic, but a reminder that it’s best to be informed, and who can argue with that.

My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme. Memoir. I don’t even remember how I came across this one, but I’m glad I did. Julia Child arrives in 1948 Paris as a clueless 36‑year‑old who speaks no French and can’t cook. This joyful book didn’t exactly inspire me to spend more time in the kitchen, but it’s a lovely reminder that every meal should be savored—and so should the unpredictable adventure of life itself.

That’s it for now, thanks for reading!

Neve

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Neve’s January Newsletter

Hello. Grif hopes you are well.

Happy January! After the holiday break, I’m back on work on Book 2 of the new series. I’ve been using Aeon Timeline to pull all the series details into one place. The software has proven to be very helpful in keeping it all organized — character names, dates, and so on. I’ve mapped out the outline for the book in it and color-coded things nicely. I would post a screenshot, but it would include story spoilers!

For now Book 1 is still in a holding mode. Publishing does not move fast, and I do want to make sure that the series has the best possible launching pad into the world. I’m hoping to have a more concrete update in the next newsletter, but we’ll have to see.

Sci-Fi Explorations Bundle

Last few days of the Sci-Fi Explorations Bundle! Thirteen authors coming together to offer their books in a themed collection. Includes my futuristic mystery/thriller All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise. Find all the details here.

The Sci-Fi Explorations Bundle expires on midnight ET on Thursday, January 30th.

What Have I Been Reading?

I’ve got a couple of books to recommend:

Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility. Science fiction. I flew through this one. The past, the future, pandemics, time travel. A beautiful and unsettling read.

I’ve also been enjoying Joe Moran’s First You Write a Sentence. Non-fiction. This is not exactly a craft book, more of an ode to the beauty of the written word. A book best read at an easy pace and savored.

Social Media Update

I’ve been poking my head out of my hobbit hole to check out the new social media options. I tried Threads for about 5 seconds, but there’s no way to turn off autoplay for videos, so that’s an automatic no from me. I do like Bluesky, and it’s becoming livelier, with a robust and growing book community, so much that I keep wanting to call it Booksky. It has the feel of Twitter before it was X, with a similar interface and a 300-character limit for posts. Like Mastodon, there are no ads on Bluesky (though that may change down the road) and it has some cool, unique features like Starter Packs.

If you’re on Bluesky, you can find me here.

Thanks for reading!

Neve

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Sci-Fi Explorations Bundle

A bit of early 2025 news! My mystery/thriller, All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise, is in a StoryBundle! If you’re not familiar, StoryBundle offers curated collections of ebooks where you can pay what you want and support great authors. The Sci-Fi Explorations Bundle was curated by Carolynn Gockel and features 13 terrific books.

The way it works is, there is a $5 minimum, for which you’ll get the basic bundle of four books. If you’re feeling generous, $20 gets you nine more bonus books — All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise is one of these. You can also give a portion of your purchase to charity.

The bundle is only available for a limited time, so take a look here for all the details: Sci-Fi Explorations Bundle.

If you’d like, you can help spread the word by sharing this email or Substack post.

Thank you so much for your support, and happy reading!

Neve

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Help Me Choose a New Cover for Delilah’s Demise

There’s a poll happening over on Substack for a new cover for All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise. Hop on over and cast your opinion! The poll will be open until Tuesday October 29th.

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July Newsletter

Hope everyone is having a safe and enjoyable summer!

Can anyone help me identify a bird? It nested a while back on the light fixture right outside our front door. There were at least three baby birds, from what we could see of the beaks peeking out of the nest. When we got back from a week away visiting family in South Carolina, everyone had flown the coop! I made an attempt to identify the breed by its brownish-white chest on one of those websites listing bird species in Minnesota, but without much luck. If you’re familiar with it, do let me know!

In reading news, I’ve been trying Bookbub as a recommendation site for what to read next. (Amazon’s algorithms tend to suggest books that are popular but don’t catch my eye, or books that I’ve already glanced at but passed on for whatever reason…and, occasionally, the algorithms suggest my own books as well?) If you haven’t come across Bookbub before, it allows you to choose which categories you like to read and follow authors and be alerted when they have a new book out or when one of their books goes on sale. The site sends out daily emails with discounted books in your preferred reading categories, which is handy for discovering new authors. The only problem is that my To-Be-Read list is growing ever longer!

Speaking of Bookbub and other sites that feature discounted books, I had someone ask me whether waiting to buy a book until it’s on sale hurts authors and the answer is no. The point of the promotional pricing is to climb Amazon (and other) charts, and every purchase of a book helps push it up the charts just a little more. The reader saves money, which is always good, and the book gets a tiny boost in visibility, also good. In other words, everyone wins…which probably accounts for Bookbub’s popularity with both readers and authors.

And speaking of sales, All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise will be discounted to $0.99 the week of July 26 on Kindle and the Nook. I’m in the process of taking the book “wide” onto other retailers–the full list will be available here by the end of the month. It’s been a bit of a learning process and I’m curious if I have readers who prefer platforms outside of Amazon–my print books have always been available wide but the ebooks have been limited to Kindle thus far. So if you’re on Nook, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books or another retailer, do let me know!

Hope your summer is full of good books and good friends!

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Happy Spring

Photo by PhotoMIX Company on Pexels.com

I hope everyone is having a good spring and enjoying the warmer weather and maneuvering vaccine appointments without too much difficulty. It’s been hard to snag appointments here in Minnesota but I did just get the first dose of the vaccine yesterday. I’m looking forward to getting back to traveling this summer and doing normal things like regular haircuts and teeth cleanings and time spent at the outdoor swimming pool. It’s been a strange fourteen months or so, to say the least.

On the book front, All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise is now available in paperback, after a delay because the print proof got lost in the mail for a bit. You can find it on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble. If you’re interested in ordering the paperback through your local library, the book is listed via IngramSpark. You’ll need this number, the ISBN: 978-1-7366979-1-7

My thanks to everyone who’s bought it so far and left reviews! For some reason, this time around, the reviews have mostly gone to Goodreads rather than Amazon and I have no idea to what to attribute the pattern. Maybe posting thoughts about a book on Goodreads feels like less pressure — plus the site does let you leave a star rating only, no text needed. Either way, the reviews have been much appreciated!

Also, I’ve done a couple of guest posts this week. On Thursday, Mary Robinette Kowal kindly lent me a corner of her blog — My Favorite Bit — where I got to talk about the fun I had choosing brands for my cast of characters.

In keeping with the theme, a few days before that I was guest on PersephoneKnits, Julie Reeser’s blog, where I mused about coming to terms with my author brand…

…or, A Story Best Told in Four 19th Century Owl Illustrations.

The seasonal photo at the top is from pexels.com – our yard is still mostly brown!

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Launch Day: All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise

Hello, everyone! It’s here, the launch day for the eBook of All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise, a speculative whodunit set in a Seattle of the future. Now available for Kindle and on Kindle apps for iPad and iPhone.

An early review on Goodreads had these kind words to say about the book:

“Delilah’s Demise is a delightful surprise… An intriguing dystopian future blended with a murder mystery.”

I’ve had a couple of people ask whether there’ll be a print book. The answer is yes, a print book is in the works and should be out by early April — stay tuned!

Looking back on writing this, it reminds me a lot of Regarding Ducks and Universes, although they are very different! Part of it is that they’re both standalones and about the same length: 90,000 words. They also both look into the near future, whereas my other books (in the time travel Incident series) turn a lens into the past. Then there’s the fact that they both ended up with looong titles… They were the right titles, but still, it makes it a challenge to write a tweet referencing the books or any kind of character-limited description!

I’d like to report that spring weather is accompanying the book launch but as I’m writing this it is in fact snowing here in Minnesota. At least it’s a spring-like snow, large melty flakes that won’t stick around for long.

Finally, if you do pick up the book and would like to help spread the word about it, an Amazon or Goodreads review is, as always, much appreciated!

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Cover Reveal: All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise

COVER REVEAL

It’s here, the cover for All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise, out on March 16, 2021! I was concerned the title, being long, would have to be squished in, but I think it pops beautifully. Fantastic job on the design by Damonza.

ADVANCE READER COPIES

As the publication date nears, I’ll have a few ARC ebooks (Advance Reader Copies) to give out. I’ll be emailing these out at the beginning of March. Launch week reviews posted on Amazon and/or Goodreads are more important than ever in getting the word out about the book, so if you interested in being an early reviewer, please do let me know. Details on how to sign up are below.

To be added to the ARC list, either:

(1) reply to this email (if you’re reading this in a newsletter)

or

(2) contact me.

There is a choice of formats: mobi (for Kindle ), epub, or pdf. Don’t forget to let me know which format you’d prefer!

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December 2020 Newsletter

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Book News

There’s book news to announce! The novel I’ve been working on for a while now has a publication date: March 16, 2021. The finalized title is All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise, a mystery set in a near-future Seattle. This one ended up being somewhat of a departure from my usual style, but I learned a lot in writing and polishing it, and from feedback I received along the way from beta-readers and my editors, Kristen Weber and Shannon Page. Hopefully you all like it!

Here is a brief description:

A future Seattle where popularity is everything. The mysterious death of the #1. And an elusive killer.

A century into the future, life on the frozen West Coast is harsh but inside the Dome of New Seattle, it’s a popularity contest. Everyone’s sorted onto a People List—at the top is Delilah, a charismatic stage actress. Much lower is Scottie, six months into adulthood and sliding toward the bottom spot, which brings a short ride out of town.

When Delilah dies in a balcony fall, the blame for the seeming accident lands on Scottie. Aided by her ‘Watson,’ the personal assistant her brain chip provides, Scottie scrambles to save herself and find the real culprit. What she discovers will shake the very foundation of her world…and place her squarely in the crosshairs of a shadowy killer intent on clearing a path to #1.

There is no cover yet but the Kindle preorder page has gone up — you can find it here. There will be a trade paperback version; I should know more in January – stay tuned. There will be ebook ARCs to give out at some point, most likely at the end of February.

New Website

Next, I’ve moved my website from Blogger over to WordPress for a crisper look. Come check it out here (unless you’re reading this on my website, in which case you’re already here). I tried to aim for an uncluttered, easy-on-the-eyes feel to the font and pages.

Manuscript Critiques

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Finally, I’ve added a manuscript critiques section to the website. Send me your works-in-progress or your ready-to-submit masterpieces for feedback!

I’ll read your manuscript twice, once all the way through without stopping and a second time with an eye out for everything from story structure to pacing issues to character development. More details can be found here.

Have a great rest of the week,
Neve