I've never been a consistent blogger, but the last few years, with the day job and blogging not being as cool as it used to be, well, it's about never?

You're more likely to get an email from if you join my newsletter!

I've got Book 3 in Shifter's Heart coming out on Tuesday Sept 7, so that's a thing! See above for cover.

A big, bad wolf meets an innocent grad student

Beth Ogden has lists and notebooks and transcriptions and scans and years of work toward her PhD in History. She’s preparing to go to a shifter commune to do more research when she’s asked to take an undercover FBI agent along as her assistant. An attractive, intriguing FBI agent.

There are warning signs that the peaceful, spiritual commune is turning into something more sinister.

Agent Alex Three Feathers, half wolf shifter, half bobcat shifter, all jaded, slips into his role as research assistant, but wishes his undercover days were over. He’s being considered for a role in the FBI’s Shifter Task Force, but there are a few problems:
1) His half-brother is his liaison for this assignment and is already on the task force,
2) They hate each other,
3) He has to survive this commune that’s a hair trigger away from exploding in his face,
4) He’s falling for Beth, who’s likely to get herself killed through her naïveté.

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I also just put the pre-orders up for the ebook version of Christmas Spirit, a re-release of my first book, a Christmas ghost novella. Slightly updated and edited from 2013 (has it really been that long???)

 A math professor meets her great-grandmother's ghost

 

Dr. Annabelle Smith is new to her tenure-track position in the math department at the small college where her great-great-grandfather taught more than a century before. She's years away from being tenured faculty and has to be the perfect professor in all ways, considering the tight, unforgiving university job market.

She definitely doesn't believe in ghosts, but ever since she bought her ancestors' farmhouse, intense dreams have plagued her.

When her attractive history professor neighbor, Chris, returns from sabbatical, the ghost invites all her memories and throws a Christmas party in the living room.

The ghost wants to know what happened to her son.
Chris wants Annabelle.
Annabelle wants to keep her job AND Chris.

Time for Book 2!

It's out on Tuesday, June 29th but you can pre-order or buy from the same link. I uploaded the final version of the paperback, too, and told it to go live, which should happen in the next couple days. 

Kindle ebook ($4.99), Kindle Unlimited (included in the KU subscription price), and paperback ($9.99). Those are US prices - the international prices are based on those, but I don't know them off the top of my head.

So: I love my wolf shifter swordfighter and my magic healer vet and you will too. ENJOY!

 LINKY LINK HERE

P.S. Still getting a panicky feeling about promo and the promo sites people recommend are booked up far out into the future and/or cost a whole lot more than I'm making. SO... maybe on the third book? I have some rewrites, new scenes, and edits to do on it, plus it doesn't have a title or a blurb yet, but I'm aiming for August, which.... EEK.

Not anxious at all, of course not! Oh no....

 So yes, pre-order and buy and read and love and review!

The part of this indie publishing that's getting to me, though, is that I was going to treat this book as a sort of soft launch, like restaurants do (probably other industries, but I have seen it with restaurants), to see what works a bit, see what doesn't, get my feet under me, build some word of mouth, not spend much on it, relearn how to do advertising on websites, etc etc. Then I'm going to come out bigger with the second book, because I'll know how to do stuff!

Yeah, do I even know me? Have we met?

On top of not doing more than a bare minimum, I'm anxious because I haven't done more than a bare minimum. 

I mean, in my spare time from too much day job, of course, but also because I don't know what I'm doing with marketing, etc. and instead of trying stuff, I'm spending that time stressing and doing what I already know how to do (posting on social media, mostly). And also stressing.

I recently listened to a book that I loved in so many ways, but the main character had a history of depression and should have been diagnosed with anxiety, too, because every time someone had a secret, she started to spiral. "He talked to his ex and is nervous about it, therefore she's pregnant and he's going to dump me!" and this book was FULL of secrets and she ALWAYS got anxious and there were too many misunderstandings. The misunderstandings were organic to the characters, though, not really the "Big Mis" that bugs me a lot in some books, the kind that can be solved with a conversation. In this case, they  had to each unpick the secrets and misunderstandings of their families and their entire lifetimes. And probably get some therapy.

Right, what was I saying? Anxious. Yes. So here I am writing about it on a blog that has sat moribund for a few years.

And to link this back to my book, my main character, the eponymous Fox, has a few secrets, but she mostly won't look into Tommy's secrets too hard because the secrets might hurt her. She doesn't confront him about bullsh*t very often, just gets distant and cold. I'm pretty sure I will be told she's unlikeable and should have been more open and trusting, but she has her reasons.

And, you know, she has a lot me in her.

May 13th approaching at warp speed

It's been a crazy couple weeks with the day job, but the next couple look calmer (we have this end-of-month cycle and some months are more brutal than others, this month due to a tech thing with one of our programs that added extra work for everyone. Wheee!)

Memoirs of a Fox is coming out May 13th! Paperbacks can be purchased right now and will probably get to you by about then (my mom got her copy right after it became available, to the point that her copies don't have page numbers. Thanks Mom!)

The Kindle version can be pre-ordered for $4.99 and will pop up at midnight on May13th.

ALSO: May 13th I'm assuming the Kindle Unlimited ebook will also be available. If you want to try it out without buying and have KU, go right ahead.

All these options can be accessed HERE.

Go forth and order!

It's my birthday and I'll read if I want to

 So it's my birthday today and I received a few of THESE this week:

Yes, that's a stylized chicken on the kitchen wall in the background. We rent. Or it's a werechicken. WHATEVER.

And if anyone is interested in a paperback ARC or a mobi file to read and review, let me know!

 OK, so this thing is happening.

MAY 13th, your pre-ordered Kindle ebook will download onto your Kindle/phone/tablet.

It's going to be epic!

Preorder here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093F53GGS

Memoirs of a Fox (Book 1 in The Shifter's Heart series)

The nerd girl and the hot jock

We met in college and he, a mountain lion shifter, was my link to the secret world of shapeshifters. I crushed on him hard. A few times, it looked like he might ask me out, but it never happened. When danger came, though, I flew to his rescue.

​Literally flew. Not only am I a fox shifter, I have a mockingbird form, too.

​After a one night hook-up, he left and broke my heart. A few years later, he showed up at my door, looking for forever. I decided to trust him.

​Well, mostly trust him. Our marriage was strained and we were getting more distant when he disappeared. To get him back, I’ll risk everything, including the continued secrecy of every shapeshifter everywhere.

Paperback order link coming soon!

So for now I'm going to just do Amazon, because phew, learning curve. Also, it means I can have the book in Kindle Unlimited, maybe get a boost with that.

The title of my own memoir is Fake it Til You Make It, with the subtitle Anxiety Can Be Overcome One Second at a Time

 Righty-ho!

Spent hours the other day trying to get a link to setting up my newsletter subscription page into my website. Turns out, you just have to create a landing page and connect the link and it's fairly easy. SIGH

So subscribe to my newsletter!

Just for news, new releases, sales, and stuff like that.

https://mailchi.mp/3f319014d591/subscribe-to-philippa-lodges-newsletter 

I'm planning on getting these first three books out within a few months of each other, plus a tangentially related newsletter before the end of the year. Roller-coaster time!

 

Hello!  It's been a....while.

Currently, I'm working full time with lots of overtime for about half of each month, so further developments in writing have been off and on....for the last 4 years. 

Covid and the resultant isolation and working from home has been anxiety-inducing, but the one bright star is that some other members of my local chapter of the RWA organized weekly writing sprints that quickly evolved into 3 times a week for an hour and a half with breaks for chatting about what we're working on. I usually only make it on Saturday afternoons, but just this has been enough to get me through writing 2/3rds of one book and editing an older one to get it ready for self-pub.

Here's my cover for Memoirs of a Fox, the first in my paranormal romance shifters series, with pre-order links coming soon! I've asked for help with the blurb and want to come up with a series name, and otherwise, I think I'm almost ready to upload. 

(Photo description: the left half of the cover in an image of a fox looking out at us with a snowy background and the right half is a shirtless, muscular, blond guy looking away from it, plus a big orange heart between them. Text: Memoirs of a Fox, Philippa Lodge)

I still have only a few clues about marketing, which is where the historical books fell apart, since my publisher didn't do much to promote them and I had even fewer clues then. This book is going to be a sort of soft launch and book 2, The Wolf Knight's Tale (because Chaucer?) should come out a month or two after with more of a push, then Book 3 and in October/November, a re-publish of my Christmas Ghost novella, which is tangentially related.

Yes, this does mean I'm hoping to bring out four books this year. Wheeeeeeee!

After all those is a separate, tangential shifter series with LIONS. I've written two books in that and am turning over ideas for a third.

ALSO at some point I'm hoping to publish my two college-set ensemble cast romance novels with music and chapters from my lead character's love of 60s music. So those might come out before the lions or interspersed with the lions or with another pen name or.... I don't know? 

Basically, I wrote and edited and queried my butt off for years, had about 4 years without doing much with writing, and am now releasing all my pretty birds to fly free.