I've moved!

It's true! I have! 

Ok, fine. I'm moving in real life, too, but I've officially moved my newsletter to Substack! 

Welcome to my Grant's Crossing Substack!

If you'd like to subscribe to my monthly newsletter, click on my Leaux Cay News Substack for regular updates and subscriber-exclusive fun.

I look forward to seeing you there! 

Thanks and happy reading, everyone!

 - Heather

P.S. Join my Leaux Cay Readers!

H.M.S. Vellas by H.M.S. Brown

Have you read any Kindle Vella stories yet on Amazon? 

A what, you ask? 

Kindle Vella. 

It's a serialized story that's released one scene or one chapter at a time. You follow it, much like the readers of The Strand followed Doyle's first adventures of Sherlock Holmes, though I haven't yet worked in any pipes or cool hats. (It's good to have goals.) 

My first Vella story features Tara Bailey, who you'll also see in Safe Now, Heroes of Grant's Crossing Book 2, due out in early 2024. 

Tara's story is the first in my Grant's Crossing Family & Friends Vella Series, where you'll see some familiar characters and meet all new ones as well. 

After her father is in a serious accident, Tara Bailey returns home to Ohio to help her family during his recovery. Reconnecting with old friends, she rekindles her passion for the flailing family business and her love of the small town of Grant’s Crossing itself. To her surprise, she discovers a new love, too. Will it be enough for her to stay? Or will she return to her old life in Chicago? 

Episode 15 is now live, and new episodes are added each week. 

Grant's Crossing Family & Friends - Tara Bailey

How does Vella work? 

The first three episodes of every story are free, so it's easy to get a taste of the story. 

After that, readers follow stories by unlocking more episodes using tokens. Every first-time visitor to Kindle Vella can claim 200 free tokens to read my story. If you have Amazon Prime, you start with 500 free tokens. With those, you can unlock as many episodes as you'd like. So far, my story uses roughly 125 tokens for my first 15 episodes.

What is an indie author's currency on Kindle Vella? Readers. 

Readers who follow our stories. Readers who give a thumbs up to our episodes. Readers who comment on episodes. 

Finally, the big win is when a reader purchases more tokens, and "Faves" a story, something they can do once per week. Those "faves?" They're the golden ticket for us authors because they really boost our stories in a huge way. Kindle Vella features "faved" stories and puts our stories in front of a boatload of more readers.

And please leave a written review! Even something as simple as "I loved the book" or "Fabulous story." Whether for our Vellas or novels, such as Wayward Guilt, these reviews make a world of difference to an Indie author! THANKS!

Happy reading! - Heather

WAYWARD GUILT is the first book in my HEROES OF GRANT'S CROSSING series. Click the cover below to purchase a copy via your favorite online booksellers. Available in digital and paperback. 

My companion novel to Wayward Guilt, Safe Now - Heroes of Grant's Crossing Book 2, is available for pre-order on Amazon.   

Find me online! 

Instagram - @GrantsCrossing

Goodreads - H.M.S. Brown

Bookbub - @GrantsCrossing

Join my Leaux Cay Readers on Facebook

I'm a Published Author!

I'm officially a published author as of three weeks ago today! :-) 

Three years of writing, and Wayward Guilt - Heroes of Grant's Crossing Book 1, is finally out in the wild. 

⭐️ Small town

🇺🇸 Friendship

⭐️ Service 

🇺🇸 Loss & Grief

⭐️ First loves

🇺🇸 Family

⭐️ MM love story

🇺🇸 Honor 

I published wide, and while most of my sales so far (thanks especially to pre-orders) are on Amazon, I'm seeing sales elsewhere, too, such as BN, Apple, Kobo/Kobo Plus. I'm on Smashwords, Overdrive and a handful of other places via Draft2Digital, but also now on Ingram Spark. All my LINKS are posted at the end of this blog post.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a book fair at the main library here in Columbus and spoke to several libraries (We have a lot in the area) who let me know how to contact them to get my book on their shelves. They said that making my book available on Ingram was a huge help. Same with Overdrive. So now I'm making a list, checking it twice, and working my way through Emailing libraries - something I'm sure will be a constant, ongoing marketing process!

My book is already available in the Wisconsin Public Libraries. And as of Friday, I learned that Wayward Guilt will become available in the Westerville, Ohio library. They've just ordered my book and will add it to their collection. I've contacted other libraries in the area, such as Upper Arlington, Grandview, Columbus, Bexley, and Cleveland, and am working on more. 

If you're a fan of libraries, please request my book! It's in Overdrive, which means you can see it in the Libby App. Please click the NOTIFY ME button to let your library know you're interested in my book. (And don't you love how my search resulted in Wayward Guilt AND Shakespeare?!) 

As for bookstores, my local Barnes & Noble said that they'd order a small handful of my books because they love supporting local authors. They especially love supporting local authors who live in their neighborhood, as I do for one of them. They also said that they'd set up a signing where they'd order a case of books to support me, and I could sign them as folks buy them. That's just one store (and hopefully a second since I know a manager at another one in town), but it's a great start and gets me excited!

In the meantime, I'm working on Safe Now, Heroes of Grant's Crossing Book 2, which I plan to publish in March. Holy cow! I can't believe I wrote a book! 

Thanks to all of you for your continued support! 

Happy reading, everyone!

 - Heather

WAYWARD GUILT is the first book in my HEROES OF GRANT'S CROSSING series and is available at your favorite online booksellers in digital and paperback. 

AMAZON (Print and eBook)

BARNES & NOBLE (Print and eBook)

KOBO/KOBO PLUS

APPLE BOOKS

SMASHWORDS

OVERDRIVE - Ask your local library to carry Wayward Guilt 

My companion novel to Wayward Guilt, Safe Now - Heroes of Grant's Crossing Book 2, is available for pre-order on Amazon. 

Pride 2023 - Books and Authors Day 11 - Happy Birthday Grant's Crossing!!

Hello and welcome to Day 11 of 30 Days of Pride - Books and Authors! 

For Pride Month 2023, I’m sharing some of the fabulous books and authors I’ve discovered featuring LGBTQ or LGBTQ-friendly characters or written by LGBTQ or LGBTQ-friendly authors. 

Hey friends - so I'm engaging in a bit of self-indulgence this weekend. Yesterday, I introduced you to two LGBTQ couples in my book, WAYWARD GUILT Heroes of Grant's Crossing Book 1, and today... well - I'd like to celebrate Grant's Crossing's birthday! 

This may not be an LGBTQ-specific post, but trust me, I don't limit sharing great LGBTQ books and authors to June. I'll be back with another post featuring terrific stories and authors tomorrow for Day 12!

Grant's Crossing likes chocolate, too. 

Three years ago today, I was a month into reading romance novels - something I started while I was furloughed from work after the lockdown started. I'd read about six or so novels by this time, with the 5th and 6th being pretty awful. What did I do? I complained about it to my mom. Hey - I'm the kid. She's the mom. It's what we do. 

So how did Mom respond? "Write your own romance novel." 

Huh?

So this is what I came up with that night. I had no idea about a storyline or anything. Aside from a handful of romance novels, I'd been reading tons and tons of cozy mysteries, so I used that as a framework for brainstorming. Light stories that are fun, filled with likable characters, a small-town setting, female business owners, gotta have a detective in there somewhere... yep. Got it. 

Small town? Check. 

Quirky characters? Check. 

Good story? Check.

I'm not a visual artist (See? I'm self-aware), but this is what I came up with. 

So with all this in mind, happy ending, light, beach read, etc... I wrote my first scene. 

What was it, you ask? Heh heh heh.

In a nutshell, it was a scene on an overcast day where an ambulance with two paramedics pulled up to an abandoned industrial complex only to find a barely-old-enough-to-drive kid hanging out the side of an old car, apparently overdosing on opioids. From a 2nd story window inside the dilapidated factory, a young girl watched from above through dirty windows. After the ambulance drove away with her friend, she returned outside and ran home as the rain began to fall. 

Spoiler alert - the kid in the car makes it and will appear in a later book. 

The two paramedics? They became Derek Mitchell and Kiro Marinov (Pronounced like Hero with a K and Marine + off). Derek's the main character in Wayward Guilt. As for Kiro, you meet him in this book but get to know him better in subsequent books like Safe Now, Warm Drink on a Cold Day, and End of a New Life. 

This is my second attempt at creative writing, with the first being a total fluke - The Weaving Loom - a short story I wrote while serving in the Peace Corps in Bulgaria. My only question is why the heck did I not start writing earlier in my life? I absolutely love writing and bringing these characters to life. 

I hope you love these stories and characters, too! 

Take care, and happy reading!

- Heather 

As always, my reviews can be found on Goodreads and other retail sites. 

Pre-order your e-Copy of WAYWARD GUILT - Heroes of Grant's Crossing Book 1! (Print version will be available for pre-order in early July.)

AMAZON - KOBO - BARNES & NOBLE - APPLE

Find me online! 

Instagram - @GrantsCrossing

Goodreads - H.M.S. Brown

Bookbub - @GrantsCrossing

Follow me on Facebook

My NetGalley ARCs

I read a lot of ARCs which are Advanced Reader Copies of books in order to help generate buzz for soon-to-be-released books. I get them from a couple of websites, but mostly via authors directly.

Sometimes, like an extra appetizer on the menu, my eyes get a little hungrier for titles to read than my time allows. Sometimes I also put my name in for books and then start writing my own. 

NetGalley is a great resource for generating buzz on new books. Used primarily by small and large publishers alike, it's a treasure trove of new books of all genres for readers to dive into. The only requirement is that you write a review of the books you take. I currently have 10 books out. According to the NetGalley group I'm in, that's not at all unusual. What's unusual is that I recently went into NetGalley to discover I hadn't read them all. (Don't look at the dates. Really. Don't look. Sigh. Fine. Look.)

I have 10 books out - 8 are cozy mysteries, 1 is a romance, and 1 is a biography on a Pakistani cleric credited with the internationalization of the global jihadist movement. It'll take me a while to get through, but it's quite good so far. It's actually not the first book on that topic that I've read. 

I had 12 books before and have just posted a couple of reviews in my efforts to whittle down my book list. 

Cozy mystery - To the Tome of Murder by Lauren Elliott - Goodreads Review

Romance - Off the Grid by Kay Richard - Goodreads Review

I have high hopes for the balance of the books on my list. Yes - I'm way past due for a bunch since they're almost all already published, but I'm working on it. I take books that intrigue me or that are written by authors I already know I like. 

I hope you'll friend me or follow my reviews on Goodreads. 

I'm in there as H.M.S. Brown which will be my pen name when I start publishing. And yes - those are my real initials, with the addition of my mom's maiden name to add the S. I couldn't resist! And no - I don't use her maiden name of Scribner for passwords. But Yes - Scribner, like the publisher. We're distantly related. Think that'll give me an "in?" 

(Scratches chin) 

Hmm.

Hope you're all having a great weekend! Take care and happy reading!

 - Heather 

Twitter - @GrantsCrossing

Instagram - @GrantsCrossing

Goodreads - H.M.S. Brown