Virtual Tourist 01/28/22

News/Musings	StoryOrigin Swap 1
Virtual Tourist – Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order	StoryOrigin Swap 2
Cozy Up with a Mystery Giveaway	Ring in the New Year with Mystery Books

Greetings!

How is everything? I hope life’s been good!

News/Musings

I’m always trying new things to market the books, get more readers, or write better books. You have to be careful or you can drown in everything out there or stretch yourself too thin.

The first draft of White Gold, book two of the Daiyu Wu Mysteries is almost complete. I am chomping at the bit to get it done! But that’s when I need to reign it in to make sure the end is as good as I can make it for the first pass. This is my first book two ever, so it’s weighing on me more than usual. LOL.

I also worked with someone to re-do Black Jade’s blurb. I was getting clicks on Amazon Ads but minimal buys. So the cover and ad blurb were doing their jobs, but something was not working on the actual book page. I put up the new blurb this week and restarted the ad. It’s still too early to tell, but I am hoping it will do better now. 🤞 Wish me luck!

If you want to see the new blurb, you can see it at my website here.

Around Christmas, I joined another author promo group called the Dream Team Network. So you may see swaps from that direction soon. It’s not as organic as the StoryOrigin setup, but hopefully, I can join some cool giveaways to share.

Extra content today:

1) StoryOring Swap 1& 2

2) It’s January—Cozy Up with a Mystery Book Giveaway!

3) Ring in the New Year with Mystery Books

Scroll on down to get all the deets. 😉

Gargoyles: Stone Curse

StoryOrigin Swap 1

Your whole family is dead, so here’s a bunch of money, a rundown estate on twenty acres, and a chance to live in a po-dunk town in the middle of nowhere.

Three months after sixteen-year-old Violet Kai moves to the small town of Concrete Washington to receive her inheritance from her late uncle, she starts to get the feeling that not everything is not what it seems in the sleepy nook of the Pacific Northwest. During an impromptu séance with friends that ends up in chaos, Violet learns she was bequeathed much more than she bargained for. Six gargoyles swoop in and save her life; only to inform her that she also inherited them as her wards. Along with an ancestral curse, and a book load of magic. With Violet in town, the gargoyles are awake for the first time in years and Violet quickly learns why they seem to need a magical babysitter. Ready to stretch their wings and go wild, they wreak havoc on her life and even her reality.

Pulled into a new world of magic and stony shenanigans, it’s not all fun and games. Awakened gargoyles also mean awakened demons too, demons who are attracted to Violet and her powers. With monsters of all sorts seemingly running loose, it’s up to Violet and her gaggle of gargoyles to fight and contain them. Demons aren’t the only threat in her midst. When long lost memories start bubbling to the surface, they bring with them betrayal, deep seeded feuds, and strong feelings that Violet isn’t sure any amount of magic can fight.

Star Wars – Jedi Fallen Order

I am a sucker for all things Star Wars. While I have not played all the games, Star Wars – Jedi Fallen Order had been calling to me for a while. There were specials during Christmas and New Year, but I hesitated as the reviews kept comparing it to Dark Souls, which I stopped playing after the first boss as he was way, way, way overpowered. But seemingly there are people out there who love impossible challenges. Me, not so much. My time for fun is limited and I want to make it count. Being frustrated out of my mind is not something I enjoy. So I went back and forth, and back and forth, and finally, I caved and got it. I’m glad I did!

As all games should, you can pick the difficulty level, so those who like impossible odds can set it to hard. I went with the story-rich version. The game also uses parkour movements. What this means is that the player will use more ways to move around than just walking and jumping. You’ll climb walls, swing on ropes/vines, and look for non-standard ways of getting to places.

You don’t get a map until you meet BD-1 (He’s so cute!), and it can be a bit troublesome as it’s in 3D. You do have to go to the same planets/areas multiple times, but you do get to create shortcuts as you go along, so that’s nice!

Premise: Set five years after Order 66 was initiated and most Jedi killed, we meet Cal, a young padawan at the time of the purge, who has been hiding at a junkyard world to stay under the radar. Then things go wrong.

Great music, gorgeous graphics, and a very Star Wars movie feel. You can see all the pics I’ve uploaded so far here.

Our journey begins on the planet Bracca, a junkyard planet. It’s there that we meet Cal, the game’s protagonist. No map on this planet, so you have to get to where you need to go on your own! Think outside the box. 😋

Be prepared for insane, outside-the-box situations. Cal saved a coworker when some wreckage messed up the platform and had to use the Force. This brought imperial forces to hunt him down. Now he is trying to flee. (Cal was a padawan at the time of Order 66 (The kill all Jedi orders) and suppressed his connection with the Force so he wouldn’t be found.

A couple of freedom fighters helped Cal at the last minute on Bracca. An ex-Jedi has asked for his help to find a Holocron with the names of Force-sensitive children. The ex-Jedi is no longer connected to the Force. Things will be revealed as we got along. Cool ship, no? As you find secret stuff in the game, you get skins to change the colors of the ship, your poncho, BD-1, and lightsaber.

Cal’s first look at Bogano—a supposedly unknown, sparsely populated world. It is here that Cal is looking for a Jedi Master to help find information needed to possibly restart the Jedi Order.

Cal is here to get information on an extinct race and its location. It is here that Cal has his first flashback of his Jedi Master and remembers a blocked-out skill. (Running on walls sideways!) You also get skill points to spend as you get experience points.

Here’s a closeup of Cal with BD-1.

Close up of BD-1. He’s so CUTE!!!!! He rides on Cal’s back and as you ad modifications, he does all sorts of things. He was left on Bogano by a Jedi doing research on a Force-sensitive race. BD-1 will trigger recordings when you reach certain places. (***He shows up on Episode 5 of The Book of Boba Fett! The whole episode is about the Mandalorian! Woot!***)

Walls of the temple that contain the first clues on finding the Holocron.

Ring of Fire

StoryOrigin Swap 2

Magic. Betrayal. Forbidden love.

A human girl must choose between safety and truth when she falls in love with an elven prince.

Kala was only 8 when Mystics killed her parents.

At least, that’s what she’d been told.

Her uncle-one of the king’s soldiers and the only witness-had never had the heart to burden her with the details of the night that had changed him forever.

Still, she should have known better than to wander in to the woods alone.

An encounter with a pair of elven enemies leaves Kala even more confused about her past, and uncertain of her future in the human world. “Love had blinded me to all logic, wrapping me in my own denial…” If you like magic, adventure, and clean fantasy romance, you’ll love Ring of Fire.