A Bonus for Newsletter Subscribers

Sometime around the first of May, I will be sending out Issue #2 of my author's newsletter with a special inclusion, the first episode in a serial I will be writing over the coming year or so, The Diaries of Penelope Ember.

This serial will be available for free to my newsletter subscribers (because you guys rock). It will also be available to visitors to this website, although with a bit of a delay. Subscribers will receive their episodes free right off the hard drive, and approximately three weeks later, or when the next episode has been completed, the preceding month's episode will be posted here on my website. Over time each succeeding episode will be tacked onto a page devoted to this work-in-progress.

Serials are fun. Stephen King went this route with The Green Mile, and I thought I'd give it a try. And while readers of House of Shadows will recognize where the novel begins, it will not be necessary to have read that book in order to enjoy the serial.

I'm posting this because I wanted to give folks who haven't subscribed to the newsletter yet an opportunity to do so before the first episode comes out. You can subscribe by visiting my regular website; just look in the upper right hand corner.
Here's a brief taste of the beginning:

I stand in near darkness, arms folded beneath my breasts, ten feet away from the dead boy in my basement.
How do I know he is dead, you ask?        
Because I am the one who killed him.
I am Penelope Ember, scion of the Breed. Two weeks ago the last member of my family, House Ember, perished screaming in flames, and now I am alone.