To write Two Scorpions in a Bottle, I had to research ... scorpions. And I learned some fascinating stuff.
What I Learned about Scorpions
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Coming soon! Book 7 in the Flirting with the Zodiac Series!
Latest stories
What I Learned about Scorpions
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Influences in the Flirting with the Zodiac Series
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The Flirting with the Zodiac series is my longest series. It’s over halfway finished now, with seven out of a projected thirteen books in the series published. Given that, I thought it was high time to talk a bit more about the series, its genesis, and some of the influences that inform the books.Some of the influences are much more obvious than others, while others might seem, well, a little bit...
Why Are So Many Romance Novels Actually Horror Stories?
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A friend recently sent me a YouTube series of a reader/reviewer absolutely sending up one of Colleen Hoover’s books. I highly enjoyed the series, and it further cemented my decision to never, ever, ever touch a book by Hoover.At the tale end of the series, the reviewer made jokes about how the novel’s heroine seemed to be running away from the male lead. Our intrepid protagonist left her...
Two Scorpions in a Bottle Preview
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Read the first chapter of Two Scorpions in a Bottle, the seventh book in the Flirting with the Zodiac series by Cherry Pickett!
Banning Books and Other Pastimes: What the Current Era of Book Bans Means for Readers
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It’s no secret at this point that we’re living through a wave of neo-fascism. We’ve seen waves of (hyper)conservatism since the end of World War II, but none have seen the far right gain such a substantial foothold. Maybe the time was right. It’s been more than eighty years since WWII ended after all. In the last twenty years or so, I’d say we’ve seen people questioning if the Nazis were really...
Scary Monsters and Superfreaks: Monsters in Romance
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The idea that people are really into getting freaky with eldritch horrors is not news to me. I’ve been kicking around in anime fandoms, and we all know that tentacles are going to come up at some point. There’s also, of course, Rule 34, which means that if it exists, there will be porn of it on the internet.It just seems that lately, that kind of fantasy is maybe a bit more … mainstream. You know...
Payment Processors vs Platforms: A Worrying Trend
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Payment processors are trying to dictate what's available for sale on certain platforms. That should worry us.
How Bad Reviews Can Help You Sell Books
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We all hate bad reviews. But they can have their upside. For example, they can sometimes help you sell your book.
How Do You Know a Book’s Word Count?
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So ... how do you know how many words are in a book?
Reflections on “Missing the Boat” with Major Trends
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So. Heated Rivalry, huh? ‘Nuff said. Pucking hockey … (Tony Schnagl / Pexels.com) I haven’t read the books, nor have I seen the show, so I can’t really comment much on whether it’s “good” or if I liked it or not or anything. And, at this point, I’m not sure I can stand to watch it—there’s a lot of, hmm, how shall we say? Feels going on for me there.What kind of feels? Oh, you know …...
