Deadly Avarice: Necromancer Tales III Now Available

Good morning. I am happy to announce that the third necromancer book, “Deadly Avarice” is now available in e-book and paperback. I enjoy writing the characters of this book—especially Erasmus’s father, Warlock Holland and of course, Aurelia. There will be at least one more book in the necromancer series. Perhaps two depending on how the fourth book goes.

I’m currently taking a short break from the series to write a compilation of short stories surrounding the side characters of the perfect pixie series. Three stories are finished and I just started the fourth last night. I hope to have at least five all together. The finished stories are as follows: How Vander and Georgiana met, Nirgal getting his happily ever after (his own colony of sprites and a pixie to brighten his dark nights), and Sedrick’s niece and nephew searching for the perfect birthday present for Phil (spoiler alert—Phil’s friends have plenty of ideas). I’m currently working on Hamish McIntyre’s HEA and last, but (hopefully) not least will be a story told from Trinket’s perspective. The title will be, “Perfectly Petite Shorts” and I hope (fingers crossed) to have it available by late summer.

Writing tends to take some what of a back seat this time of year as I enjoy working outside. Winter clean up takes time and getting the gardens up and going again does too. This year is a little more dramatic regarding clean up compared to year’s past. We can thank early April storms for that one. Said weather is responsible for this post’s “fun fact” which isn’t really all that “fun”.

I live in the Midwest and this time of year, the weather is very unpredictable. One day it can be in the mid seventies and the next day you can have sleet or snow. Earlier this April was a day that started out cold to cool and heated rapidly (never a good sign). I was out running errands and in the span of forty-five minutes, the temperature rose almost fifteen degrees. While that might sound wonderful, it’s also a sign the atmosphere is unstable. Mother Nature proved once again how inconsequential our building efforts are when she sent severe storms through much of the middle United States. I’ve heard that my county had at least six verified tornados that night.

The tree that fell into my yard; obliterating my shed, the power lines, cable/internet lines, and parts of my fence probably wasn’t due to a tornado, but straight line winds. The same neighbor’s yard that sent the tree falling into my space had a different tree that fell on the house directly behind it, damaging the roof. All told, I’m lucky it was just my shed.

I learned an important lesson during this storm. My cat, Newton, is the smartest (or at least has the strongest sense of self-preservation) of anyone in the house. Why do I say this? Simple, he was the only one who went to the basement. The storms hit after I’d already put FenFen to bed. Fen is a very routine oriented dog and I knew if I woke him up to go to the basement, he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep the rest of the night and thus keep me up. As I wasn’t about to go to the basement without him, I stayed on the main level of the house. This was far from intelligent.

The tree that hit my shed could have easily fallen on my house—injuring me or Fen (Newton would have safely been in the basement). As for Fen, being deaf, he slept through the entire thing, blissfully unaware of our close call. Needless to say, things were a bit of a mess after that. My power was out for four days, cable/internet out for six, and I’m still dealing with downed cable/internet lines laying across my mangled fence and bushes.

While all this royally sucked, it could have been much worse. I’ve also had the opportunity to add a few skills/bits of knowledge to my post disaster wheelhouse. I now know how to order a dumpster, how to file a claim with my homeowners insurance, how to dismantle and remove a collapsed shed, and that the chain length fence is called “fabric” by the fence experts (that was a total new one to me). Along with learning it’s called fabric, I’ve also learned how to tell if a fence is on your property or your neighbors. Handy information indeed.

Almost four weeks later and things are getting back to normal. The fence is still a wreck and everything that survived the shed massacre is currently sitting on my back porch (can you believe the lawn mower made it through?!). A new shed is ordered and I’m making lemonade out of lemons by getting a privacy fence put up along the back of my yard so I no longer have to look at the neighbor’s unmowed and weedy property. As an additional plus, Fen shouldn’t be able to see the neighbor’s dog any longer and since he can’t hear them—out of sight, out of mind. No more barking . . . ahhh . . .

If you’re wondering, where I work was just fine. The veterinary practice I work at is about a 10-15 minute drive north from my house and their storms weren’t nearly as bad while where I live looks like . . . well, it looks like we had really shitty weather and high winds. A lot of trees ended their lives that night.

So . . . that’s been my recent excitement. I’m not so much into life drama. I thrive on routine with the occasional surprise tweak. So far, for me, I think I’ve rolled with the punches fairly well. I’ve tried to stay calm and polite. Shout out to the lineman out there who worked God only knows how many hours after the storms getting everybody back up and running. Now, the cable/internet company . . . that’s a different story. I’m embarrassed to say that yesterday I found myself screaming at the phone that I wanted to talk to a human being. Spoiler alert—I never accomplished that. I’ve been told the only way to speak to a human is to immediately say I want to cancel my service when the automated messaging system picks up. I can not express how pissed off that makes me. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Okay, enough of my bitching (my sister and another friend had to listen to enough of that yesterday). I’m going to take a deep breath, hold it, and exhale just before I’m ready to pass out. I doubt that’s the typical yoga recommendations but that’s my plan and I’m sticking to it.

Since I’m horrid at figuring out even the most basic tech stuff, I’m going to put another post up after this one with a picture of my smashed shed. There’s probably a way to incorporate it in this post but since I’ve had to do enough mental expansion recently, I’m giving myself a mental break and sticking with what I know 🙂

I hope all of you are well and safe. Somehow, Fen, Newton, and I managed to make it through Mother Nature’s wrath physically unscathed. I’m going to count my blessings and next time, I’ll wake Fen up and we’ll all cower in the basement.

Please let me know what you think of “Deadly Avarice”. I sincerely hope my stories help take you away from the trials of your day.

MJ May

Hey! Look at that. I figure out how to incorporate another picture. Go me!

A different angle. Again, can you believe the mower survived?

This is after the tree was cut up so the lineman could get to the power lines.