Novels | marieqrogers

Archive for the ‘Novels’ Category

Quest for Namai is on Biblioboard

Posted in Novels, tagged Adventure, Coming of Age, Nature, Paranormal fiction, Science Fiction, Youth Fiction on August 30, 2022| 4 Comments »

Quest for Namai is now available in Indie Florida, a collection of books from local indie authors available exclusively on the BiblioBoard Library mobile and web platform. This collection is available to patrons of participating libraries all across Florida. You can access it here if your library participates in the program. Unfortunately, my local public library doesn’t currently participate, but I have requested that it become a member.

You can always find this book and Trials by Fire on my Amazon page and Season of the Dove on Vella.

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Looking Forward

Posted in Marie's Musings, Novels, tagged COVID literature, Editing a collection, Matheson History Museum, Pandemic experiences, Volunteering, Writers Alliance of Gainesville, Writing on January 2, 2022| 2 Comments »

Over the past few days, my inbox has been filled with notices of new posts by fellow bloggers. Most recap the past year and list their intentions for the year to come. But where have I been?

They say the Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions. If that’s so, anyone who hasn’t posted on their weblog since September must be on that very road! In my defense, I’ve been slammed with projects over the past year. It’s my own fault. I need to go back to middle school and take that “Just Say No” workshop.

I won’t bore you with the many organizations I volunteer for, only say that I’ve threatened to go back to work so I can get some time off. With a job, you work 8 to 5, weekends off, and you can call in sick. A volunteer position owns you body and soul and is no respecter of holidays or even wee hours of the night. My advice to new retirees is to watch out for that “V” word.

No more complaining–in my writing life, I have been productive. Season of the Dove, my book on Kindle Vella, is doing well. Quest for Namai, the sequel to my YA book, Trials by Fire, will come out this month if I can get KDP to cooperate with my uploads.

Coming soon…

Another project I’ve been involved in has finally come to fruition. Back in August 2020, the history museum in Gainesville, Florida began collecting material from local residents on their pandemic experiences. Someone got the idea to involve local writers, i.e. the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, with which I am intimately involved. The idea was to compile stories and artwork into a book which would chronicle the lives of ordinary people in these unordinary times. It sounded like a good idea, so I jumped in feet first.

Wise people test the waters first, but in reality, these waters were untested. Most of my partners in crime are writers, but this was the first time we’d taken on a project like this. It proved to be a learning experience. In our innocence, we thought we would have the book put together by December and published by January, 2021. Nope.

However, we persevered. After the vaccines came out, we worried the pandemic would be over and forgotten before we released the book. Dream on. Setback after setback, over a year after we started, Local Lives in a Global Pandemic: Stories from North Central Florida finally saw the light of day!

I was both unprepared for and pleased by the attention we received in the community. It feels good to be appreciated. It feels even better to have this project behind me.

In the coming year, you will hear more from me. I haven’t stopped musing over curious things. In the meantime, click on the titles of the books and links will take you to them. Enjoy!

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Season of the Dove on Kindle Vella

Posted in Novels, tagged Adventure, Climate Crisis, Future History, Hurricane, Kindle Vella, Murder Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Social Upheaval on September 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Have you heard of Kindle Vella? It’s a new thing, where stories are published by episode, much like in the old days when books were serialized in newspapers and magazines. For some reason, you can’t read these stories on your Kindle but on your phone or computer.

I was putting the finishing touches on my novel Season of the Dove when I heard about Vella. After exploring a few books on the platform, I decided my novel lends itself well to being serialized.

For you, the reader, here’s how it works. You go to Vella and choose what you want to read. Here’s a shortcut: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09GLLRR87. You can read the first three episodes for free. That should be enough to let you decide if you’re interested. If you are a first time Vella user, you are then given 200 free tokens. Each episode costs a certain number of tokens depending on the word count. After you’ve spent your 200, you can buy more. For $1.99 you can buy 200 , but if you’re a serious reader, you can buy in larger quantities at a discount, up to 1700 tokens for $14.99, which could pay for several novels. The total cost of a book is about equal to what you would pay for an eBook or a print book, depending on how it’s priced.

If you like an episode, give it a thumbs up. That helps the writer. Once a week, you can give your favorite book a Fave, which lets other readers know it’s worth reading.

Season of the Dove takes place in the year 2123. Serious damage has been done to the environment, resulting in social and political unrest. Florida is hit by a Category 6 hurricane, which makes matters worse. The main characters, Rob Hardman and Rosa Ortiz, are caught up in the turmoil. Yes, this is a dystopian future, but it is not a tale of gloom and doom. I won’t tell you how it turns out. You’ll have to read it. You’ve probably guessed a love story is involved. In addition, there is a murder (or two or three) to solve, a good bit of adventure, and human interest.

Unfortunately, while a book is on Vella, it can’t be published in another form, so Season of the Dove won’t be available in eBook or hard copy until such time as I take it down and republish it.

I invite you to check out Season of the Dove. (Yes, that’s the link above.) If you wish, you can give me feedback in the comment section below. Happy reading!

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Sunshine State Book Festival

Posted in Novels, tagged 2021 Book Festival, Sunshine State Book Festival, Writers Alliance of Gainesville on April 30, 2021| Leave a Comment »

In January 2020, the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, of which I am a part, presented their First Annual Sunshine State Book Festival, featuring some 75 authors, several speakers, and reenactors of famous writers of the past. It was a resounding success.

January 2020 Sunshine State Book Festival

Once the excitement settled down, we began planning the second annual SSBF. Then COVID. Talk about deflating your balloon! It was not long before we realized there were to be no traditional festivals for quite some time. Time to regroup and get creative.

Why not a virtual festival? The advantage of a virtual event is that presenters and participants are not limited by geography. They can be from anywhere in the world. And they are. Most of our nearly 100 authors are from Florida, but some are from other states, and a few international writers are included.

Rather than sitting in a booth with their books displayed in front of them, authors videotaped short talks on their books. Instead of standing in front of a podium in an auditorium, guest speakers appear in videotaped presentations. In addition, we were not limited to a single weekend. Once launched, the festival could be live for months. And it is. Don’t miss it.

Please visit: https://www.sunshinestatebookfestival.com/

The planning stages for the 2022 Sunshine State Book Festival are underway. Hopefully, this will be a traditional festival, but we’re prepared for any eventuality.

Don’t forget to visit my booth:

https://www.sunshinestatebookfestival.com/au_pg1.html#Rogers

Happy reading!

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Trials by Fire Wins Award

Posted in Marie's Musings, Novels, tagged Adventure, Coming of Age, Florida Writers Association, Paranormal fiction, Royal Palm Literary Award, Science Fiction, Youth Fiction on January 19, 2021| 2 Comments »

Now that the holidays are behind us and life may settle down, it’s high time for me to toot my horn. Here’s the press release:

MARIE Q ROGERS WINS PRESTIGIOUS AWARD, ANNOUNCED AT
2020 FLORIDA WRITERS ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE

The Florida Writers Association, Inc., (FWA) has announced that Marie Q Rogers won a prestigious Royal Palm Literary Award (RPLA). Her winning entry, Trials by Fire, won the Bronze award for Published Young Adult Novel.

The award was announced at FWA’s recent remote four-day annual conference. This annual competition was RPLA’s nineteenth. “This is the most competitive RPLA we’ve ever had,” said Chris Coward, RPLA chairperson. “The RPLA administrative team, judges, and entrants did an amazing job.” In all, the competition covered 28 adult genres and 5 Youth genres, with published and unpublished entries considered separately. “A win at any level can help a writer market their manuscript or published book, and the detailed feedback from the judges is invaluable for all entrants,” Ms. Coward said.

The Florida Writers Association, 1,800 members strong and growing, is a nonprofit 501(c)(6) organization that supports the state’s established and emerging writers. Membership is open to the public. The Royal Palm Literary Awards competition is a service of the Florida Writers Association, established to recognize excellence in its members’ published and unpublished works while providing objective and constructive written assessments for all entrants. For additional information, visit the FWA website: floridawriters.net, where you’ll also find more about RPLA and the complete list of 2020 winners.

And now, my friends, if you haven’t read Trials by Fire yet, this is a good time to order the hard copy or download the ebook and curl up with a cup of hot cocoa. My readers have ranged in age from 10 to 89, and so far everyone says they like it. You can purchase the book here or ask your public library to order it. After you read Trials by Fire, please take time to write a short review on Amazon and/or Goodreads.

Most important of all, enjoy.

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Happy New Year!

Posted in Marie's Musings, Novels, tagged Adventure, Bacopa Literary Review, Grandchildren, Memories, NaNoWriMo, Novels, Science Fiction, Travel, Writing on December 31, 2019| Leave a Comment »

You may have noticed I haven’t posted in a while. It’s not that I’ve been idle. This year I’ve done a lot of traveling, besides to Djibouti in January. During the summer, I traveled as far as upstate New York for a family reunion and spent time with my children and grandchildren in the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia. Then in October, I realized one of my life-long dreams and went to Greece—Athens, the Parthenon, and beautiful islands in the Aegean Sea.

As if that wasn’t enough, in November I joined my sister Sue in Connecticut for a genealogy expedition. This was the first time since childhood that I ventured to a northern clime during winter. I survived. When my granddaughter was born in the Blue Ridge Mountains in December, I braved snow and ice for this happy occasion.

So I have many adventures to write about, including the rest of my journey to Djibouti. I promise to deliver.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing, because I have. I’m polishing a novel I wrote during NaNoWriMo a few years ago, while another simmers on the back burner. One of my short stories was published in Bacopa Literary Review this fall. But what I’m excited about today is the novel I just released, Trials by Fire, which is the first volume of a trilogy, The Long Road to Namai.

This story has been down a long road itself. When I was a kid, my sisters and brothers and I would camp out in the backyard on summer nights and tell ghost stories. This was science fiction, not a ghost story, and it was so long ago I don’t remember much about the original version. During college, I developed the story a little more. Through the intervening years, I wrote at least one short story which bears little resemblance to the present incarnation. None of these previous efforts bore fruit.

Then I retired and spent a month writing the first novel length version. I went so far as to self-publish it, but gave away more copies than I sold. A few years later I reread the book and thought, “What a great story, but what lousy writing!” I took it off the market and totally recrafted the whole thing. The story was still good and the writing much better, but it was too long and I couldn’t get the word count down without sacrificing important elements.

I decided to follow the suggestions of friends to divide the story into at least two parts and market it to Young Adult readers. I won’t bore you with all the details involved in getting a book market-ready, but as one person warned me, it takes longer than you think. Finally, here it is.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy this novel even if you’re not into science fiction. It’s also a human interest story and unlike anything else you’ve read. During the coming year, I will finish parts two and three and release them for your reading pleasure. Stay tuned.