Faith Hunter

Mid-April Newsletter

Hey, Y’all!

I had all those releases (one compilation, one anthology, one novella) in March/April and they are finally out now! Tales in the Midst, Paranormal Payback, and Junkyard Riders. If you haven’t read, they are all out in eBook, all are (or soon will be) out in paperback, and all but Tales in the Midst are out in audio. The audio company turned down Tales in the Midst, and I refuse to use AI, so it will not be in audio. I am truly sorry about that, but it is what it is.

Have you seen the revamped (giggle) website? It is gorgeous! The AMAZING RJ Blain did it for me as a gift, though I did bribe her with Le Creuset treats. She has a lovely collection courtesy of www.faithhunter.net Check the website out!

My garden beds are FULL of WEEDS. They look horrible. I worked for close to two hours today, and managed to dig weeds out of half of the new bed, put cardboard over the ground, and a heavy layer of mulch on top. It looks great. I am exhausted. I am getting too old for the nonsense of weeds!

I am starting tai chi, and have taken my first online lesson. I am using YouTube, instead of in person classes, because I don’t like leaving the house. I feel the motions and moves already! I’ll keep you up on how it goes.

I have been cooking new dishes with about 50% successes and failures. A total failure today was the roasted red cabbage chunks. The recipe called for olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt, which I have used many times on other veggies to great success. The result was bitter, which does make me wonder if the cabbage itself was the problem. I have never had bitter cabbage! I think I’ll have to toss the entire thing. (Shudders at the taste.) I made up for that failure with an old standard: sliced and roasted carrots with half olive oil and half maple syrup as a marinade.

I’m drinking new tea – an Apple Chai which I recommend for autumn, and a luscious black tea Thai Chai, both from Adagio Tea. Soooo good! I also made my own herbal chai with a tiny chunk of dried turmeric root, 6 dried ginger root slices, one dried anise “flower,” one cinnamon stick, five whole black peppers, and two dried clove buds. It is wonderfully soothing, good for the digestion, and also is quite tasty, if I say so myself!

While sipping teas, I am reading. I have recommendations.

Jennifer Estep’s Only Bad Options and Only Good Enemies. Excellent! Available now. Book three coming soon.

The first three books of the Dungeon Crawler series, by Matt Dinniman. They are well crafted, but I lost interest on book three, and put it down. Come to think of it, I put it down to read the following book, and it was so fabulous, I could not come back poor Carl, so that might have been the problem.

Ilona Andrew’s, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me. I am in awe. It will take 2 reads to take it all in, but wonderful. Available now.

And I am just starting the third and final book in RJ Blain’s Lowrance Vampire trilogy DEATH DANCE! This series is fun, snarky, fast moving, and offers a different concept of vampires: their history, gifts, relation to shapeshifters, and how to view them in history and present. And did I say Fun? Fun! This novel opens with the beheading of bad-guy-vamp, which is a favorite opening for me. The cover is adorable too, see below. It’s out in Tuesday 4-21 everywhere. https://www.amazon.com/Death-Dance-Lowrance-Vampires-Book-ebook/dp/B0F2ZWKXH8/

I hope all are doing well. Life in 2026 is just as weird (though in a different way) as the rest of the 2020s. Breathe. Read! We will get through this too.

Junkyard Riders snippet

Shining Smith series

“Yes. Shining Smith, I thank you for your attention and your time.” Today Gomez sounded like a snooty prewar New Yorker. He was still trying on accents. I was waiting on him to try Texan. That would be perfect with Jolene’s Southern belle drawl.

“Okay,” I said. I opened a bottle of water and drank, waiting.

“This refers to the being previously known as Garrouling PopPop,” he said, as the air filters shot the scent of peppermint into the room. Bug aliens used scent as part of speech, and the speech part wasn’t anything a human mouth could make. Garrouling PopPop, no peppermint scent, was the best I could do.

“Okay,” I said again and put the glass bottle in the rack for cleaning and refilling.

“Garrouling PopPop is no longer in a state of maximum inactivity.”

“Uhhh. Okaaay. What does that mean?” I asked.

“Garrouling PopPop,” Gomez said, with a fresh spray of peppermint.

The scent was so strong, I started sneezing.

Between my sneezes Gomez finished, “—is no more.”

“He’s dead?” I asked. I grabbed a handkerchief and shoved it against my face.

“He is not a he and never was. Garrouling PopPop is not dead. I have told you repeatedly that Garrouling PopPop has been in a state of maximum inactivity. Now, Garrouling PopPop is no more.”

“Which sounds like dead. Please stop saying his name. I’m dying here.”

“No. Your poor ability to scent emotions, your limited neural capacity, lack of neural computing capability, and deficient problem solving skills are insufficient to understand my captain’s biology.”

“I think you just called me stupid,” I said. “If he’s not dead, what is he?”

“The closest analogy in your nonspecific language is, ‘active, timorous, saturated, multilarval sponge state’.”

I pressed the spot on the command center that flushed the smells out of HQ. “So, he’s not dead.” I blew my nose vigorously.

Gomez sighed. The AI actually sighed. He had been around Jolene way too long. Tuffs, who had clearly been listening, jumped and slipped through the flap opening in the office, taking the slide to the lower levels of the Bug ship. “They have no equivalent pronoun in your language. However—they are not dead.”

From Junkyard Riders, novella 5 in the series.

Tales in the Midst

Uncategorized

It’s out today! Coming soon on Kobo and B&N

Mud’s Corner

Marketing Permissions